


United In Fear

by justfandomwritings



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Heavy Angst, House Lannister, Implied Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Pre-Red Wedding, Reader is a Lannister, Red Wedding, Rejection, Romantic Fluff, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Soulmates AU, Tywin Lannister's A+ Parenting, but not good implications
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2020-05-15 13:39:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 46,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19296880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justfandomwritings/pseuds/justfandomwritings
Summary: The names were the greatest mystery in Westeros. Each kingdom had their own telling of the story. None of the kingdoms could agree on where they were from or how they came to be. Each thought a different god, their own interpretation of religion, was responsible, but all seemed to agree on one thing: they were a gift.





	1. The King's Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> This work is also being simultaneously posted on tumblr at justfandomwritings.

It wasn’t her banner or her looks that tipped Robb Stark off that she was (Y/n) Lannister. It was her being. The way she dismounted her horse while all of Winterfell still knelt before Robert Baratheon, as though everyone, even the King, was beneath her. The way she took her brother’s helping hand as if Lannister blood was the only thing worthy of touching her skin. The way her chin never dipped, always keeping her head up and her gaze held high. The way her feet glided over the ground with quick, sure steps that spoke of how little she wished to touch Northern soil. The way she never met the gaze of anyone, save her siblings, Robb’s father, and the King. (Y/n) Lannister could not have hidden her identity even if she tried, and she most certainly did not try.

She kept beside her brother as the King motioned for them to rise and greeted Robb’s father. Her eyes took the time to wander over the keep, and she kept her expression unreadably passive wherever they went. She made no acknowledgment that anything important was happening around her until her sister exited the carriage. (Y/n) released her brother’s arm and stepped forward to stand at the queen’s right hand.

“My queen,” Ned Stark said as he bent to kiss Cersei’s offered hand.

“My queen,” Catelyn echoed with a curtsy.

Cersei greeted both with a weary, but polite nod. “My sister,” Cersei stepped aside, positioning herself in front of Robb, and held out her hand for introductions, “(Y/n) Lannister, Lady of the Rock.”

(Y/n) offered no hand, so Ned simply bowed before her. “My lady.” 

She curtsied with the air of someone who would have preferred not to move at all. “A pleasure, Lord Stark.”

“The pleasure is ours, Lady Lannister,” Catelyn greeted, repeating her curtsy.

(Y/n) returned Catelyn’s pleasantries only to be interrupted by the King. “Take me to your crypt. I want to pay my respects.”

(Y/n) and Cersei averted their gaze to Robert with matching expressions of distaste. “We’ve been riding for a month, my love. Surely the dead can wait.” Cersei’s tone was dismissive, but her expression as Robert called for Ned to step around her was nothing short of wounded.

Robb watched the sneer on (Y/n)’s face as she eyed Robert Baratheon’s retreating back. He wondered, to himself, if it was agitation at being spoken over, agitation on her sister’s behalf, or simply agitation with the state of the King. Robb wasn’t sure he would blame her with any of the three. He couldn’t recall his father ever speaking over a noblewoman of any standing, and Ned was certainly never so dismissive to Robb’s mother.

And the King. Well, the King was not at all what Robb expected from his father’s stories. He knew the man had aged some since his father had last seen him, but Robb thought he’d have aged with more dignity. He didn’t expect a belly fat with food, breath stale with wine, or a horse’s dismount that require a servant to bring the King a stool. Robert Baratheon was what Robb Stark expected of a wealthy village drunkard, not his supposedly heroic, noble namesake.

The Lannisters, for all the harsh words his father had to say about them, did not at all disappoint. The family measured up entirely to even their most fantastical tales. The Queen had aged some since the songs had named her the Light of the West, but she had aged with grace. Her beauty had changed, but Robb could say with some certainty that it hadn’t faded.

Jaime Lannister was ever the Golden Lion. A ballad of his bravery during the Greyjoy Rebellion had once been sung at a feast in Winterfell, and Ned Stark had grudgingly admitted the words to be true. The Queen’s twin was a formidable man who’s self confidence was only matched by the skill he used to justify it. All the poets had something to say or sing about Jaime Lannister. Some painted him a hero, some a villain. But all painted him the perfect image of a knight, and the man before Robb now proved them all to be right.

(Y/n) was not the subject of songs, but whispers. Tywin’s youngest child was no older than Robb himself, the product of a second marriage Tywin did not wish to make. She was rumored to be her father reincarnate. With her mother dead in the birthing bed and her siblings in King’s Landing, (Y/n) had been raised by Tywin and Tywin alone, entirely in his own image. Watching her stand in the grounds of Winterfell, Robb would say that Tywin’s quest had been a complete success. She was only a young woman, yet her presence demanded respect, and everyone gave it.

“Where’s the Imp?” Arya asked her older sister, with no attempts at hiding her words.

The words drew (Y/n)’s gaze, and for the first time, Robb watched his youngest sister cower back, afraid.

The Queen turned her head to her sister. “The little beast wandered off again.”

“I’ll find him,” (Y/n) didn’t bother to look at her sister as she addressed her. Her eyes stayed on Arya for a moment longer before she whipped around, marching back to her horse.

“My lady,” Catelyn took a step out of line after the youngest Lannister. “Perhaps, we can offer some assistance.”

Jaime Lannister responded with a chuckle as he offered (Y/n) a hand back on her horse. “Only in finding your nearest brothels.”

Catelyn Stark was thoroughly scandalized as Lady (Y/n) rode away, Ser Jaime following at her heels.

Robb sighed to himself and turned away. She hadn’t been introduced to him. He still couldn’t be sure.

* * *

 

The names were the greatest mystery in Westeros. Each kingdom had their own telling of the story. None of the kingdoms could agree on where they were from or how they came to be. Each thought a different god, their own interpretation of religion, was responsible, but all seemed to agree on one thing: they were a gift.

In the North, they maintained the names were a mystery of the Old Gods, a force that no man could influence or pretend to understand. The descendants of the First Men claimed the names long predated the Faith of the Seven and dated all the way back to the Children of the Forest. No proof could be found of this, but given the Andals hostile takeover of the other kingdoms, much of the First Men’s culture and history had been lost. It fell to the Starks alone to remember, and they did their job well. The North remembered.

The Reach claimed they came from the Father. They argued that if the names were given by the gods, surely they came from the Father who was Above All. They weaved a tale of a man, loyal to no god but the Seven, who came to Westeros with the invasion of the Andals. He preached and pleaded with the First Men to convert to the one true religion, and everywhere he went they rebuked him. Everywhere but Oldtown. Everyone but House Hightower. As a gift, for the conversion of Damon Hightower to the Faith of the Seven, the Father gave the names to the Reach, and thus as the faith spread so did the names across all of Westeros.

The Stormlands claimed that, in fact, the Smith, mender of broken things, was responsible for the gift. Men, whether they were Andals or First Men or Rhoynar, were harsh, imperfect creatures, and nowhere was that more true than the Stormlands. The Smith had long made it his responsibility to put their world right, and that began with fixing the men themselves. He began with Hugor of the Hill, the first King of the Andals. The Smith touched Hugor’s arm to give him the name of his wife, so she might heal the scars the world left on him and his sons might find maidens of their own to do the same.

The Warrior was, in fact, the source of the The Vale’s legends. It made sense in that The Vale was the first place invaded by the Andals. They claimed the reason the names existed in Westeros but not Essos was because the Andals had never conquered the eastern continent. Where the Andals seized land in honor of the Warrior, the Seven would bless the soldiers out of gratitude for their service. Of course, this blessing started with the Vale.

In the Crownlands, the names were said to be given by the Mother. It was said that one day she looked down on a small, forgotten sept in the Crownlands and saw one of her devout, a young married woman, crying at her altar. The young woman had been married for two years and had yet to fall pregnant with her husband. He was an angry, cruel man, threatening to disavow her and name her barren if she did not give him a child within the year. The woman called out for the Mother’s mercy, for a child she could not have, and the Mother heard her cries. She wanted happiness for her good and faithful servant and knew she would not attain it with such a man. Reaching down, the Mother touched the woman’s arm, and a man’s name appeared, a name that was not her husband’s. Many years later, Baelor the Blessed would visit every sept in the Crownlands, looking for the place where the Mother gave the names, and when he sensed he had found it, he built up around that sept the Great Sept of Baelor, a sept worthy of the gift the Mother had given to man that day.

The Westerlands cited scripture. It was written in the Seven Pointed Star that Hugor of the Hill received a blessing from each of the Gods, and when it came to the Maid, she gave Hugor a maiden of his own, a wife of great beauty and innocence. The Westerlands maintained this must mean she gave the names; it was the Maiden’s way of giving the gift of love to every true believer in the Seven.

The Crone belonged to the Riverlands, in more ways than one. To the Lords and Ladies of the Riverlands, the Crone was held in the highest esteem. The names were without fault or failure. How could anyone think the wisdom of age, that only came from the old woman, was not involved? They told a lovely story of the Crone looking on the youth of the Maiden with sympathy for her ignorance. Longing to spare her from making the same mistakes the Crone had learned from in her youth, the Crone spared her the search for a man who truly loved her by pointing her in the right direction.

Dorne had the simplest explanation, and they did not bother trying to justify it with tall tales or kingdom history. They said the names were a gift from the Stranger. So that no man need face Death alone. Robb liked that explanation best.

Still, he did not believe in the Stranger. He kept faith with the Old Gods. His mother had made a point that all her children at least understood the Seven and understood that, while they were the same gods everywhere, each kingdom saw them differently. Catelyn knew that Ned would have to raise them to worship at the weirwood tree, but she didn’t want her children to feel out of place if they ever joined her in the sept or journeyed in the rest of Westeros. 

Robb knew all the lore, and he remembered it well. Not so well as Sansa, who longed to go South, but better than Arya who never listened no matter how many times she was told.

He would often lie awake at night staring at the name inked into his arm, wondering to himself what she thought of this. If she, like him, believed his name on her arm to be a gift from the Old Gods, beyond the understanding of man. If she thought his name was a gift from any one of the Seven for any number of reasons. Or if she was on the other side of Westeros, simply looking for a companion to her grave.

Her name was never far from his thoughts. He wondered where she was. He wondered her station. He wondered how she felt. He wondered if she wondered about him. How could she not? They were destined for each other, destined to be together, if not in this life than the next.

When he was younger, Robb had longed for her. His nurse had met her mate, a butcher from one of the smaller towns outside of Winterfell; and he longed for the love he saw in her eyes. He longed for frivolous things: someone to suffer through his lessons with, someone to ride the Wolfswood beside, someone to take some of the weight of Winterfell off his shoulders. 

As he got older, he learned better than to dream of such things. 

Not everyone met their match, and the odds were not in Robb’s favor. Most of Westeros lived and died without knowing whose name had mared their skin for life. There were too many people, spread out over too great a distance, over Seven Kingdoms and the Vale, and all anyone ever had to search for was their first name, their given name on their arm. Those who did find the one were usually those who were able to devote their lives to the scowering the Seven Kingdoms in  their search.

Heir to Winterfell, Robb did not have the time to search for his mate. She would have to wait. He would see her in the next life. Robb would never be able to marry the girl whose name was on his arm. Even if he found her, he could not have her. There were millions of women in Westeros, and his mate would not be among the nobility.

It was an incredibly rare occurrence for nobility to be destined for each other, but it had been known to happen on occasion. Yet only once, in the millions of Westerosi, in the thousands of mates that found one another, in the hundreds of nobility that went searching, in the dozens of nobility that found their mate, and the few who found their mate to be someone of equal standing. Only once in history had two nobles found each other’s names and actually managed to be married. Two Lannisters, of all the undeserving families in the Kingdoms. As if anyone could have denied Tywin Lannister anything.

Tywin’s love for his wife, Joanna, was as legendary as his victories in battle. The Lannisters sang the _Rains of Castamere_ at their tournaments, and _the_ _Lion and the Lady_ at their feasts. Every man, woman, and child in Westeros knew the words to both.

Tywin loved Joanna deeply, unconditionally, and once they touched, no one could keep him from taking her as his own. They shared a bond deeper than their lives and deeper than her death.

No one knew a greater love than Tywin, and no one knew a greater loss.

Aerys Targaryen could have gotten away with all his burnings, all his cruelties, all his madness; bare one. Bare the day of the Tourney at Harrenhal when he declared the end of Tywin’s mourning, when he stole Tywin’s son and declared before all the Seven Kingdoms the Hand of the King would remarry. 

The stories said that was the day the Targaryens lost the war: long before it even started. Of course, Rhaegar snubbed his wife, Elia, in front of Prince Oberyn. Yes, he kidnapped Lyanna Stark from under Robert Baratheon’s nose. Sure, Aerys did give away the woman Ned Stark was pursuing. But more than all of that, it was the day the Targaryens crossed Tywin Lannister, and there was one certainty about Tywin Lannister. Those who crossed him only got to do so once.

Any other man in the Seven would have been thrilled, relieved even, to marry Ashara Dayne. Tywin Lannister simply looked on the girl and walked away. 

It was common knowledge that Tywin only ever touched his second wife twice: once to hold her hand to complete the wedding ceremony and once during the bedding. The maids who came to collect the sheets the next morning swore they heard Tywin cry, but that could have just been a rumor. Neither maid was seen or heard from in any noble house in Westeros again to confirm or deny. 

It was likely for the best that Ashara died giving birth to her only child. It spared her a lifetime of living in the shadow of a ghost. It spared her the pain of watching her daughter, (Y/n), twisted into the spitting image of her father. 

Robb had heard her name once, (Y/n) Lannister, and asked his mother hopefully if that was the (Y/n) on his arm. He didn’t know her, but he hoped it was her, hoped it was someone he might actually be able to marry one day.

Catelyn had been aghast. She swore no son of hers could ever be bound to a Lannister.

* * *

 

“My lady,” A knock came on the chamber door. “The feast is prepared, and the guests are assembling downstairs.” 

(Y/n) threw the door open and leaned against the thick wood frame as she crossed her arms over her chest with a mischievous smirk. “My lady? Since when did you use such formalities?” 

Jaime stood on the other side of the door, looking as golden and perfect in his armor as always. His lips were pulled wide in a smirk matching  his little sister;s, the one he’d spent years teaching her on their father’s occasional trips with her to King’s Landing. “Well, when you are in the presence of the acting Lady of the Rock, one must always keep one’s guard up.” He extended his arm to her, “Shall I escort you?”

“I suppose that wouldn’t be entirely disagreeable,” She mused, lifting her golden skirts with one hand and accepting her brother’s help with the other. “Tell me, do you think Tyrion will grace us with his presence this evening?” 

Jaime snorted as he pulled the door to (Y/n)’s room shut and led her down the hall. “Doubtful, though I could be persuaded to hunt him down if you or Cersei wished.” 

“Cersei never wishes,” (Y/n) rolled her eyes. 

She and Cersei had a mutual understanding that was heavily dependent on both sisters keeping their distance. Of her siblings, (Y/n) was closest to Tyrion, but she wasn’t about to get in a fight with Cersei over forcing his attendance at a meager Northern feast. 

“But you always do.” Jaime said it like he was reminding her of something profound rather than her own opinion. 

Jaime let go of her hand and descended the narrow, winding steps to the ground floor, staying one step ahead of her so he might catch her if she slipped. He knew it was an unnecessary precaution. (Y/n) never slipped, in actions or in words. It still made him feel better to know he could catch her if he needed. 

“Because I love our brother dearly, Jaime, as do you.”

“Cersei loves him in her own way.” Jaime tried to placate. 

(Y/n) only scoffed. “You always were a terrible liar.” 

With a chuckle, he took her hand and helped her off the final step back onto the solid stone of one of Winterfell’s many long, dark halls. “You and I both know that’s not true. I can get away with lying to anyone I’m not related to. It’s only you three and father who ever really caught me in a lie.” 

“Yes, but I believe I deserve greater credit than the others. They have far more experience; I missed all of your childhood antics. All I have are Tyrion’s stories and father’s criticisms to keep me company at the Rock.”

Jaime nodded in agreement. “The Rock can be quite lonely. Cersei and I only had each other for a long while.” 

(Y/n) looked around for a quick moment before she dragged her brother back by his arm. Her eyes searched the stone in both directions to ensure no one was watching before she pulled him into a narrow walk off the main passage.

“Jaime,” her tone was a quiet, harsh warning. 

Not for the first time since they’d started the journey North, Jaime heard his father in her voice. It always amazed him. He wondered if she knew she was doing, or if it came to her naturally.

“Do not do this here.” (Y/n) pressed.

“Do not do what, sister?”  

Her head cocked to the side, eyes judging his every word. It was the way Tywin looked at advisors who spoke out of turn. “You know what. You and Cersei hide nothing from me. I remain silent out of respect for you, but don’t mistake my silence as approval of your behavior.” 

The muscles in Jaime’s jaw tightened. A tell that he was about to lie. “I don’t know what you’re…”

She cut him off before he could finish. “Do not play games with me, Jaime. I am not Tyrion, too drunk to care; and I am not father who does not see what he does not want to see. I see you Jaime.”

“Sister, what exactly is the point of this conversation?” He wouldn’t bother denying it again. If the first denial didn’t put (Y/n) off, it meant she would not be dissuaded. 

“My point?” She went on her toes and looked over his shoulder. Her voice was quiet enough not to bounce off the stone, and the walls shielded them from most prying eyes. Yet that did nothing to quiet her concern. “My point is that I will not have you risking this family, Jaime.”

“You think so little of me, sister?”

“Yes.” It was a blunt answer. An honest answer. “Jaime, unlike our siblings, I do not think you foolish, but I do think you arrogant. You know the consequences of being caught. You’re just far too confident that you won’t be.”

Jaime sighed and ran a hand through his hair. (Y/n) was impossible to argue with. Part of it was her mind. Jaime always joked she had inherited the portion meant for him. A greater part was their father. (Y/n) had a way of saying the things he knew Tywin would, but with a touch more caring that made him actually  _ want  _ to listen.

(Y/n) took the pause as opportunity. “Listen to me, Jaime. I know what you’re thinking, brother. You think, even if caught, there will be no consequences for your actions, because there never have been before. You know what the consequences should be, but you don’t think they apply to you. If you got caught in Casterly Rock, the servants would die with your secret, whether they kept it till old age or were hung from the gallows by father. If you got caught in King’s Landing, there would be whispers. Yet, no one would be foolhardy enough to question you of them, or Maester Pycelle would poison them by dinner.” 

She growled, dragging his face down to her level by the collar of his breastplate. (Y/n) needed him to listen to her. “This is not Casterly Rock, Jaime, nor is it King’s Landing. This is the North. You are in the enemy’s camp, and your name will not protect you.”

Jaime measured his sister’s words carefully. “If it would make you happy, sister, then nothing will happen while we are under Ned Stark’s roof.” 

“I would be utterly relieved, if I actually believed you.” Her tone was short, but Jaime could tell she was hopeful.

“All will be above reproach,” he offered her his arm again. “You have my word.” 

(Y/n) accepted with a wary expression but allowed him to pull her back into the hall and west towards the feast. She could hear it now. There was raucous laughter and loud music filling the air. 

“Lady Lannister,” Three more long hallways, and Jaime presented his sister to the Lady of Winterfell, Catelyn Stark. 

“Lady Stark,” (Y/n) curtsied with an elegant twist of her hand. “Judging by the sounds, this will be quite the feast.”

“Indeed,” Catelyn’s smile was warm but not at all inviting. There was a distance to the woman as she stood awkwardly in front of her. 

(Y/n) bit back a smirk. Catelyn Stark was smart. Distrusting a Lannister was usually the right idea. “It’s not every day the King makes the long journey north. I’m sure they are excited to be part of such a grand occasion.”

“Made grander by your presence, dear sister.” Jaime had gone to retrieve Cersei. 

“My queen, I doubt you need me to accomplish such a task.” (Y/n) gave Cersei a friendly smile. “You are, after all, the Queen of Westeros. What could I possibly add?” 

The formality of the conversation between the siblings visibly disconcerted Catelyn. She couldn’t tell what was heartfelt and what was show. Catelyn was caught in a conversation with three Lannister, unable to speak but unable to leave. 

“Too gracious of you, sister.” Cersei deferred away. “Jaime retrieved me from my conversation with our host because I hoped to ask you a favor.”

(Y/n) shot her gaze after Ned Stark at the other end of the hall. She would ask about the discussion later; they both knew that. “Do share, my queen. If it is within my power, I will happily oblige.” 

Cersei touched a gentle hand to Catelyn’s shoulder, dragging her, unwanted, back into the fold. “Robb Stark, your dear boy,” the Queen smiled to Catelyn, “is the male heir of greatest standing and is duty bound to escort my sweet Myrcella to the feast this evening.” 

“That he is,” Catelyn wasn’t sure the explanation was meant for her. It would be far greater offense to ignore than to interrupt. 

“It,” the Queen paused as though looking for the right word, but (Y/n) knew whatever was to come Cersei had practiced down to the last pause, “unsettles me.” She seemed to finally choose the word. “He’s an honorable man. I’m certain of that. Still, he’s a man nonetheless, and Myrcella is so young. As a mother of daughters, I am sure you can understand my hesitation.”

Catelyn didn’t, but she acquised. “Of course, my queen. What would you propose?”

“If my sister and your son will agree,” Cersei turned to (Y/n), as if she had a choice in the matter, “I would ask that Myrcella walk with your lovely boy Bran, while Robb escorts (Y/n).”

(Y/n) nodded, “Of course, my queen. If it would ease your mind.”

Catelyn stepped back from Cersei, removing the Lannister’s hand from her shoulder. “I will speak with my son for you, my queen,” She curtsied as she backed away towards the other end of the entryway, where her sons congregated with their father, Robert, and the Baratheon boys.

“Well that went well,” Jaime snorted as he watched Catelyn’s hasty retreat. 

“She’s scared,” Cersei rolled her eyes after the older woman.

“She hides it well, though,” (Y/n) offered a subtle agreement. “Do you actually wish me and Myrcella to switch? Or were you just looking to unnerve her?”

When her face turned back to the safety of her siblings, Cersei’s lip curled into a sneer. “I have no intention of that Northmen touching my Myrcella. Robert already means to give my Joff to that wench, Sansa, but at least he’ll be able to stay with me. I won’t have Robert abandoning my sweet girl all alone up here in this waste. That man and this so-called castle aren’t worthy of her.”

“Voices down, sister,” (Y/n) warned with little concern actually seeping through to her tone. “I’ll walk with the Stark. No one will leave Myrcella in the cold.”

“Woman!” Robert’s voice boomed.

(Y/n) caught only a glimpse of Cersei as she turned. The twins truly did share everything. Cersei’s jaw clenched before she lied, as well. “Yes, my love?” It wasn’t a terribly good lie either.

“It’s time to feast. Walk with Ned.” 

(Y/n) watched her sister’s hung head approach Ned Stark. If she was a fool, as Robert Baratheon most assuredly was, she would think Cersei humbled, but (Y/n) was no fool. 

“My lady.”

(Y/n)’s hair whipped at her cheek, turning her head far too quickly for her to hide that she was anything but surprised by the voice. She hadn’t heard Robb Stark approach, nor had she expected to hear his voice. It wasn’t often that anyone caught her by surprise.

“Yes, my lord.”

“I was told by my mother that I am to escort you.” Robb offered her his hand with a bow. “Unless, of course, you would prefer the company of Rickon.” His smile was teasing but genuine. It was a refreshing change of pace. 

“Do not tempt me,” She smiled politely in return. “He is a charmingly adorable child.” 

Her hand reached out to accept his, only for his whole body to jerk back the second their fingers brushed. 

She couldn’t deny she felt it to. 

(Y/n) had long forgotten about the writing on her arm. It was an irritation she had to conceal behind her sleeves, nothing more. 

Peasants had a habit of naming their children after their liege lords and other powerful men in Westeros. After Robert became King, Robb proved to be an incredibly common name throughout the Seven Kingdoms. 

Not that that would have stopped her. If she truly wanted, she could have offered a gold dragon as reward for every ‘Robb’ in Westeros that came to the Rock to touch her hand. She could have sent the Mountain through the lands to find every man with (Y/n) still written on his arm. She could have snuck away in the dead of night with some knights who preferred her to her father and traveled the Seven Kingdoms in her search. She could have walked the twenty paces from her chambers to the sept and prayed to any of the Seven to put Robb in her path.

Instead, she did nothing. Because, in truth, she had never considered searching for him. (Y/n) didn’t want to meet Robb. 

Whatever god was responsible for the names was clearly not listening to her wants.

A burning sensation raced across her arm where she knew Robb’s name to be. She knew what was happening. She’d seen the scars on her father’s skin. 

At the first touch, the ink in the skin burned away. It left a mark like the brand of an iron. The scars left behind once it healed would form a mate’s family name. 

In a few day’s time, Robb’s arm would read ‘Lannister’, and (Y/n) would forever be signed with the name ‘Stark’. 

She always knew finding her mate would be a very bad thing, but this was worse than she’d imagined. 

(Y/n)’s aloof mask remained in place, completely ignoring the pain in her arm and Robb’s reaction. “Shall we, Lord Stark?”

Robb was frozen for several long moments in utter confusion. This was obviously not what he’d expected. Taking her hand, utterly baffled by her response, Robb led (Y/n) into the feast as though nothing had transpired.

* * *

A knock to her door woke (Y/n) early the next morning.

“Jaime, if that’s you again, I swear I’ll tell father about accidentally dumping his prized chest in the ocean.” (Y/n) groaned loud enough for whoever was on the other side to hear.

“Now, now, sister,” Jaime didn’t wait for any further invitation and slipped her door only just wide enough to step inside before he slammed it shut. “I’m here by orders of our King.” 

(Y/n) rolled out from beneath the furs. “Oh, what could that oaf ever want with me?” She quickly slipped behind her changing screen to put on the dress her maid had left hung over the top of the divider. 

“The King asked for you, but I don’t think it was by his own design.” 

“Of course it wasn’t. Why would he ever wish to talk to any woman who could think?” (Y/n) quelled her laugh to a soft chuckle. “Help me with these laces,” she came to stand braced against her bed.

Jaime groaned but approached without hesitation, “Sister, you have handmaidens for this. Do you not? Has father so deprived you in my absence?”

(Y/n) commented snidely over her shoulder. “You’re telling me you’ve not helped our sister in more precarious positions than this?”

Jaime gripped the laces and jerked them tight around her body, knocking the wind out of her. “That,” He began to lace her corset back the rest of the way up, “was cheap, even from you.”

She hummed in agreement. “Perhaps it was, but we’re all allowed our days. Yours come once a moon. Tyrion’s come on any day you refuse to let him drink. Cersei’s on any day she has to pretend to enjoy Robert’s company.” (Y/n) twisted to face Jaime with a grin, “Father’s on any day the sun dares to rise.”

Jaime chuckled at that. “And what, dear sister,” he asks as he opens her door, “has you so downtrodden?”

She simply shook her head. “Not for your ears, Jaime. At least, not till I figure out what to say.” 

Jaime frowned. “You know, I’m not half as smart as you or Tyrion, but I’m a far better listener. You can always come to me, even if you don’t know what to say.” 

“Of course, Jaime.” (Y/n) doubted many things, but she never doubted that. 

Their walk to Robert’s chambers passed in comfortable silence. (Y/n) had far too much to contemplate to maintain a conversation, and Jaime knew his sister well enough not to disturb her. 

His knock on Robert’s door seemed to be the only thing to wake her from her own mind.

“Enter,” came the King’s voice from inside.

Jaime opened the door for his sister and froze when he saw the contents of the room. The King sat at the desk in the corner with Ned Stark leaned against the wall nearby. Catelyn Stark occupied the chair in the corner, and her eldest son stood at her side. 

“My King, the Lady (Y/n) Lannister.” Jaime announced his sister as she stepped through after him. 

As usual, (Y/n)’s expression gave nothing away. It was as if she was entirely unsurprised by this gathering. “My King, my lords, my lady,” (Y/n) dipped in acknowledgment of those in the room. 

“Leave us, Kingslayer.” Robert spat to Jaime, ignoring (Y/n) as though she hadn’t spoke.

Jaime hesitated. For the first time in a long time, he considered disobeying his king. Jaime didn’t know where this was going, but he didn’t want to leave his sister to face them alone. 

“Thank you, Ser Jaime,” (Y/n) only said the words as reason to turn to her brother. Her eyes flicked towards the door, a warning for Jaime to leave. 

“Your Grace,” Jaime bowed and took the exit. It was Boros Blount’s turn to stand guard at the King’s door, but a glare at the man and a wave of Jaime’s wrist were all it took to send the knight off down the hall. Jaime trusted his sister in these situations, but he did not trust the rest of the room.

“How may I be of service?” (Y/n) asked as the door clanged shut behind her. 

Without getting up, Robert managed to turn his chair with a loud scrape against the floor. “You know damn well how. Show us your arm, girl.”

Every eye in the room was on her, and she could read them all. Robert’s impatient agitation; Robb’s deep confusion; Ned’s sanctimonious disappointment; Catelyn’s misplaced rage. She was a lioness alone, and she was surrounded by the wolf pack.

“I see you’ve spoken to your son,” Her eyes rested on Catelyn’s as she jerked her sleeve, unceremoniously, up her arm. “He was not wrong,” (Y/n) showed the room the fresh burn on her arm that was already healing to form the word ‘Stark’. 

“Damnit Ned.” That seemed to be a common saying of the King’s when he was in the presence of Starks. 

“Well,” Catelyn huffed, turning on her husband and Robert, “What do we plan to do about this?” 

(Y/n) honestly wondered how the woman managed to get a word out. If (Y/n) crossed her arms so tightly over her chest, she would hardly be able to breath, let alone form a coherent thought.

Robert forced himself from his chair with a sigh. It was before midday, and there had been a feast the previous night. This was far too early for the King to be awake, much less officiating important discussion. “What can we do? It’s a sign from the gods. We can’t ignore it.”

Catelyn was utterly fuming. Her son, her Robb, joined forever to a Lannister. She would not stand for such a thing. 

“Forgive me, Your Grace,” (Y/n) cut in before Catelyn could burst, “But it sounds to me as though you’re implying I wed Robb Stark.” 

Robert snorted out a laugh. “Gods, and here I thought you were one of the smart ones. Turns out you’re as slow as Lancel.” Robert crossed the room and clapped his namesake on the shoulder, pulling the Stark boy into the conversation. “Of course that’s what I mean. Ned raised his sons well. Robb’s a good, strong man, and the heir to Winterfell. You’d be lucky to have him at your side.” 

“I’m sure you are correct, my King, but that doesn’t change the fact that I have no intention of marrying Robb Stark.” 

Silence. 

(Y/n) thought, if she listened carefully, she would be able to hear the breaths of the Kingsguard stationed outside. 

Of the rare occasions that nobility were found to be mates and did not marry, there had always been something keeping them apart. Never had it been because one openly refused the other. Why would anyone, noble or otherwise, refuse their perfect match put on this earth by the gods themselves? 

“Forgive me,” (Y/n) spoke slowly. She was alone on shaky ground, and she desperately needed to keep the King’s anger in check, “but my hand is my father’s to give away as he sees fit. No one else’s.”

“You would stand against the wishes of your king.”

(Y/n) immediately refuted Robert’s words. “I would stand with the wishes of my family. Wherever that may lead me.”

“You will do as your king commands.” Robert’s hand slipped from Robb’s shoulder, and he took a step towards (Y/n) Lannister. 

(Y/n) didn’t bat an eye. “After my father agrees,” was the most she would concede, knowing full well it would take  _ more  _ than a miracle from the Seven to get Tywin Lannister to send her to Winterfell. 

“You think your father would refute a match to the future Warden of the North? You Lannisters think yourselves that much better than the rest of us. Don’t you?” Robert stood close enough that flecks of his spit landed on her cheek.

(Y/n) wiped them away with her sleeve and a completely blank expression. “I think nothing, my King. I think I should wait for my father’s approval before I agree to things such as this.”

“Robert, the girl is right,” Ned took a step toward his old friend, but Robert raised his hand in warning, causing the Stark to freeze.

He left his hand in the air in case anyone else dared to interrupt them. “I have had it with you Lannisters. I rule Westeros. I am your King,  _ not  _ Tywin Lannister.”

(Y/n)’s eyes narrowed. She had had it with the King as much as he’d had it with her. Her father didn’t hold the title King of Westeros, but he held all the power of one, more than one if that one was Robert Baratheon. She was more than capable of playing the game, of placating men like Robert. But she was every bit her father’s daughter. She did not stand insults in silence.

Robert saw (Y/n) open her mouth, but all he heard was Tywin Lannister as she said, “Any man who must say, I am the King, is no true King.”

A loud snap echoed through the room, followed by a crack. 

Robert Baratheon stood, looking down on his handiwork.

(Y/n) Lannister laid sprawled out on the floor with the force of a hard punch to her jaw that no one had seen coming. For a man well past his prime, Robert Baratheon could still manage all the force in his fists that his hammer had made famous during the Rebellion. The blow had knocked the girl down before anyone could think to stop him, before Ned could pull him back, before she could raise a hand in defense, before she could take a step back to brace. 

For years, Robert had dreamed of doing exactly that to Tywin Lannister. Dreamed of knocking the old man back down where he belonged. Dreamed of standing with the Lord of Casterly Rock at his feet. Dreamed of watching the arrogant man bleed the same red as his banners. 

This girl, (Y/n), she wasn’t Tywin Lannister. She sounded like her father. She acted like her father. But when Robert looked down at her, he only saw a girl. He had punched a young girl for nothing more than speaking to him.

If he had punched the real Tywin Lannister, he would have lost the offending hand by now. Instead, in his fury, he’d punched the Lannister’s young daughter. He still might lose his hand. The girl was a lion, through and through. She had claws, and one of them was standing right outside. 

Another was, apparently, behind him. 

Robb Stark pushed the King’s shoulder in his hurry to check the girl. “(Y/n), are you hurt?” The Stark boy took both of her hands in his, helping her as gently as he could, to her feet. 

“I will be fine,” (Y/n) slowly brushed down her skirts and gave a smile clearly only meant for Robb. “Thank you.” 

“I should take you to the Maester.” Robb clearly meant it to be an offer, but it came out more as an order.

(Y/n)’s shoulder had caught her as she fell, keeping her head from the floor; but the crack as she hit the stone was still a sickening sound. It would echo in the room for years. 

Every time Robb saw his mate, he would see the King throwing her to the floor, and remember that he didn’t stop Robert in time. Ned would never be able to speak of Robert as an honorable man again; down in the crypts, he would thank the gods Lyanna hadn’t lived to be his. Catelyn would pause every time she made to speak ill of a Lannister; she would remember Robb helping (Y/n) to her feet. She would remember (Y/n)’s response.

“Thank you, Robb, but I think I’d like my brother.” (Y/n) turned to the door and called out, loud enough to be heard on the other side, “Jaime!”

The door swung open in a second. Jaime had been waiting, ear close to the door, for any word that he could enter the room. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword, and his eyes darted around the room for what had made the earlier noise. 

A bruise was already flowering on (Y/n)’s face, and her dress was pulled askew off her shoulder.

“Would you be so kind as to escort me to the Maester’s?”

Jaime marched forward and caught his sister’s chin, tilting it up and away that he might examine the mark. “Is your maester a good healer, Lord Stark?” Rage dripped from Jaime’s every word, but he did not dare to ask how his sister was hurt. He already knew the answer, and it was one he could not stand to think on for long.

“That won’t be necessary, Jaime.” (Y/n) brushed his hand away and met his gaze. “I’m quite fine. I only need to send a raven.”

“For what purpose?”

How Robert Baratheon had worked up the nerve to question the woman he’d just injured was a mystery to even his oldest friend, but (Y/n) seemed unphased. 

She turned to the King, smirking through her pain, “The North truly is beautiful, and I really do think father would appreciate seeing it before winter comes.” 

“You-You will do no such thing.” It wasn’t fear in Robert’s voice. Ned was sure of that, but he thought it might have been defeat.

“Oh, I assure you I will.” (Y/n) grabbed her brother’s free hand, leaving the other in a death grip on his sword. The Kingsguard followed her without complaint, walking backwards to keep his eye on the King until they reached the door. “It’s high time Tywin Lannister sees Winterfell. Or do I need to remind you what truly unites the Seven Kingdoms, Robert Baratheon? Because we both know it’s not your throne.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not consent to have my work hosted on any third party app or site. If you are seeing this fanfiction anywhere but archiveofourown, tumblr or fanfiction.net and/or under any username other than 'justfandomwritings', it has been reposted or shared without my permission. Any unofficial archive/tumblr/fanfiction reader apps are considered third party apps and do not have my permission to use my stories in any way or under any circumstances. If you are reading this story on any third party apps or websites, including but not limited to Fanfic Pocket Archive Library or Fluff AO3 Fanfiction Reader, you are doing so without my consent and under vehement protest.


	2. Late Night Conversations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if this is any good. It's shorter than the last chapter, but I like it because I love character building through conversations

“ _A Rose of Gold_?” (Y/n) scoffed. “Do we look like Tyrell’s to you?” 

“I-I,” The bard stuttered over his words, “I could play _the Lion and the Lady_ for you, Lady Lannister.” 

A guffaw went up around the group of Lannister soldiers. There was no worse Westerlands song he could have chosen to play for (Y/n) Lannister than the one effectively about how she should not exist.

“Best choose something else,” An older soldier, named Tygett after Tywin’s younger brother, advised. 

 None of the group who’d come up with (Y/n) from Casterly Rock felt particularly welcome in Winterfell. Every morning since she’d sent word for her father to ride north, (Y/n) had left the keep in the early hours of the morning to join her men in the barracks to break fast; and every night since her father replied that he was on his way with all haste, she had dropped all pretense of social interaction with the Starks or the King’s party and taken all of her meals with her men.

The twenty or so soldiers were camped around a large bonfire behind the stables of Winterfell, as they were every night. The meal was soup, one of the large pots Winterfell’s kitchen had delivered to the barracks for any men not invited to the feast. A few well-placed coins by (Y/n) had managed to get all of the rolls baked for that night’s supper delivered, instead, to the fireside, and some of the North’s musicians who had been displaced by those brought with the King had thought to join the Lannister to earn some gold from them.

“It’s a bit late for lively music. Can we trust you to know the Song of the Seven?” (Y/n) asked the Northmen.

The bard hesitated, “We know to play it, but we keep faith with the old gods so we…”

“Cannot sing it. Yes, I understand.” (Y/n) pushed off the barrel she’d made use of as a chair and walked around the fire to toss a copper to the harpist. “Play it. We will do the singing.” 

As the men prepared their instruments, (Y/n) approached one of the squires sitting in the dirt behind the circle of soldiers. “You were the one singing on the journey to the Kingsroad?”

“Yes, my lady?” The young squire looked on confused.

“Well,” She ushered him to get up, “On with you then. I can’t very well sing alone.” 

The boy scrambled to his feet and followed the Lady of the Rock into the center of the circle as the notes began to play. 

“ _The Father’s face is stern and strong, he sits and judges right from wrong. He weighs our lives, the short and long, and loves the little children,”_ The squire took the first verse. 

(Y/n) smiled; she was right. The boy could sing. She’d remember that for the journey home. “ _The Mother gives the gift of life, and watches over every wife. Her gentle smile ends all strife, and she loves her little children.”_

The squire traded verses with his Lady, singing the deeper masculine verses to contrast her beautiful harmonies. “ _The Warrior stands before the foe, protecting us where e'er we go. With sword and shield and spear and bow, he guards the little children.”_

“ _The Crone is very wise and old, and sees our fates as they unfold. She lifts her lamp of shining gold to lead the little children.”_ Tyrion used to tease her that it was the mention of gold, but (Y/n)’s favorite verse to the common lullaby had always been the verse of the Crone. As a child, she’d loved joining in for the one verse as her brother sang her to sleep. 

_“The Smith, he labors day and night, to put the world of men to right. With hammer, plow, and fire bright, he builds for little children.”_

The squire finished his final solo, and (Y/n) picked up, “ _The Maiden dances through the sky, she lives in every lover's sigh. Her smiles teach the birds to fly, and gives dreams to little children.”_

Together, the pair sang to the men the final verse, “ _The Seven Gods who made us all, are listening if we should call. So close your eyes, you shall not fall, they see you, little children. Just close your eyes, you shall not fall, they see you, little children.”_

Applause went once around the men, more for (Y/n) than the squire. It was applause nonetheles, and from the way the boy was beaming, (Y/n) thought his talents were not often appreciated. 

The boy scampered back to his place behind the men, and (Y/n) took up the barrell as her seat once again, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees in a rather unladylike fashion. 

The men began discussing another song the pair could sing, mostly calling out for the typical _Rains of Castermere_. (Y/n) laughed when someone suggested that perhaps the squire could play a bear and let her sing the _Bear and the Maiden Fair._ The men poked fun at each other, and it wasn’t until their laughter died down that they heard a new voice.

“You are in the North,” All heads around the fire turned except (Y/n)’s. “Our songs aren’t as famous in the South, but given the setting one of them might be appropriate.” 

Silence prevailed after his words, and (Y/n) stared straight ahead as she spoke in a low, commanding voice. “Leave us.” 

None questioned it. As one, the soldiers rose to their feet and began collecting their things.

“Your name, squire?” (Y/n) called after her singing partner without averting her gaze.

“Podrick Payne, my lady.” The boy bowed in her peripheral vision. 

(Y/n) nodded. Ilyn Payne’s kin, she wouldn’t have guessed from his temperament. “Thank you, Podrick. Go with the others.”

Robb Stark didn’t approach until the last of the musicians had blundered away towards the barracks. “You have a beautiful voice.” He said as he picked out the nearest barrell one of her men had been using and rolled it over to her side. 

“Thank you, my lord. Many years of lessons would hope I did.” 

“I hadn’t thought that part of lessons to become a lady.” Robb noted curiously. “Though in truth, I never paid much attention to what my sisters’ were being taught by their Septa.” 

(Y/n) shrugged, not having an answer. “I can’t say, truthfully. I wasn’t educated by a Septa.” 

“I thought all future ladies were?”

(Y/n) chuckled to herself and finally looked over to Robb. “And since when did rules start applying to Lannisters?” 

Robb smirked and waved a hand to the empty seats around him. “They seemed to follow rules well enough. My father’s men don’t scatter so quickly at my word, let alone my sisters.” 

“I’m a Lannister.” (Y/n) sat up off her knees and looked on Robb with all the majesty her entrance to Winterfell had possessed. “We don’t tolerate insubordination in our soldiers or weakness in our leaders.”

Robb diverted his gaze quickly, “I would never dare call a woman who stood up to the King as you did weak.” He knew the bruise was still there, but he was sitting on the wrong side of her to see it. In a way Robb was grateful for that. His first sight of her skin discolored by the hands of his King had been at the noon meal after she returned from sending a raven for her father, and it had infuriated him beyond reason. When the King ordered her brother to escort her to the seat at Robb’s right hand side the damage to her face was in full view. Robb had done the only thing he could to keep himself from leaping for Robert Baratheon; he’d pushed himself from the table and stormed out of the hall to find Jon. No one, not even his mother, tried to stop him.

In truth, Robb had been looking for Jon again when he’d found her by the fire with the soldiers. He hadn’t meant to interrupt, but as far as he knew, (Y/n) hadn’t spoken to anyone but her soldiers and her two brothers since Robert laid hands on her. Robb wanted to know for himself that she was fine. 

“It takes very little to stand up to a man like Robert Baratheon,” (Y/n) mused. “All one needs is sufficient anger, sufficient bravery, or sufficient stupidity.” 

“And which one are you?” Robb chuckled, “Angry, brave, or stupid?” 

“None of those, I suppose. I like to think that I stand up to him because I see him for what he truly is.” 

After the encounter, Robb saw Robert Baratheon as many things. “I presume you see him as a tyrant?”

(Y/n) shook her head and sighed, “No, Robert Baratheon isn’t smart enough to be a tyrant. He isn’t smart enough to be a king, yet people believe he is for some ridiculous reason.” 

“What is he if not a king?”

“He’s a sheep.” (Y/n) and Robb both turned, and their eyes met for a long moment before (Y/n) looked away. “As Father always says, a lioness doesn’t concern herself with the opinions of sheep, even the King of sheep.”

Robb watched her carefully as her gaze lazed away from his. “I hardly think anyone else would describe that oaf as something so innocent as a sheep.” 

“He’s not a sheep because he’s innocent.” (Y/n) corrected. “He’s a sheep because he’s simple and foolish. He thought a title would protect him from laying hands on me, but I am the last person in Westeros any man should want to cross.” 

“Because of your father?” Robb looked as though he wanted to laugh. Her father was a man to be noted, but he wasn’t the King. “You think the King respects Tywin Lannister so much?” 

(Y/n) had heard that tone once before. Long ago, at the docks in Lannisport, a sailor from the Iron Islands had spoken to her in such a way, long before the Greyjoy Rebellion. He’d laughed when she told him about how smart and powerful her father was and jeered her story of his bravery and honor. (Y/n) had told her father about the sailor, and years later when the Iron Islanders burned the Lannister fleet at Lannisport, her father still remembered. He made her look at every coat of arms from the Iron Islands before they left. House Botley, the flag the sailor’s ship had flown, was burned to the ground. 

“It’s not a matter of respect. You’ve met the King.” (Y/n) turned her head around and tilted it up in the dying light of the embers to show him the bruise still coloring her cheek. Her hand pulled aside the collar of her dress to show him her bandaged shoulder, “The King did this, and that is the man your father respects more than any other man in the Seven Kingdoms. So tell me,” (Y/n) waited till Robb met her gaze, “do you? Do you respect the King?”

“No.” Robb kept his eyes on hers, not daring to flash them to her injuries. His fists were already clenching his pants; he didn’t know what more he could do to hold back his anger. “No, I don’t.” 

(Y/n) dropped her dress back into place, contemplating whether to continue. Robb was her mate, but Robb was a Stark. She didn’t trust many people, and none of the ones she did trust were Starks. How much could she actually divulge to him without risking her head? Not much, but then again, she doubted anyone would believe she said whatever he repeated, assuming he repeated it. Even if they did, Robert Baratheon had already struck her once. The look in his eyes when he did told her Robert knew better than to do so twice.

“Your father doesn’t respect my father. The King doesn’t respect my father, and for all the gold to my name, to have the disrespect of a man like Robert Baratheon is the greatest honor in the Seven Kingdoms. I pray one day men like him talk about me the way they talk about my father. Not with respect, but with fear. Because men like that deserve to be afraid of someone, and I hope it’s me.”

Robb said nothing because what was there to say.

* * *

 

He joined her again the next night. Later this time, after the fires had died down and the singing had stopped and her soldiers had left to fall asleep. 

“Tell me about him.” 

“About who?” 

“Your father,” Robb explained. “You don’t speak about him as though you love him, but you certainly admire him. He is important to you. I’d like to understand why.” 

(Y/n) chuckled to herself. “I must be the only lady in the Seven Kingdoms who ever has to explain _why_ she cares about her father.”

“I apologize,” Robb immediately began to backtrack. “I meant no offense.”

“None was given.” (Y/n) waved him away, slipping off her usual barrell so she could sit in the dirt and lean back on the wood. “I genuinely find it amusing that you all think my father some heartless beast of a man that no one could ever love and who can love nothing in return when his very life proves that not to be true.”

“You mean Joanna?” Robb wasn’t sure if mentioning Tywin’s first wife was a good idea, but he was curious how it affected her.

(Y/n) hedged at the name, though not in the way Robb thought she would. “Yes and no. She was certainly Tywin’s greatest act of love, but people think he feels nothing with her gone. In truth, he cares deeply about a great many things.” 

“Like what?” 

“Gold for one,” Robb and (Y/n) laughed together for a moment before a look crossed (Y/n)’s eye again and she felt the need to say, “He does love us all, in his own way.” 

“What was his way with you?” 

His question was met with nothing but the crackle of the fire and the huffing of horses in the stable behind him. The night air filled with sounds of the North that kept them from complete silence, but that didn’t calm the tension that suddenly gripped Robb’s chest. He wasn’t sure if he’d asked the wrong question or simply a hard one to answer, but given what he knew of his mate so far, he doubted very strongly any question was too hard for (Y/n) to answer. 

Robb’s eyes darted down every few moments to where (Y/n) sat on the cold earth. Her eyes twinkled reflections of flames as she stared into the fire, but there was not even a twitch to her gaze when a spark danced out of the flames and died only a step from her feet. She was looking, but she wasn’t seeing. Wherever (Y/n)’s mind had gone, it wasn’t Winterfell. 

“If I’ve caused you any discomfort…”

“I never knew my mother.” (Y/n) spoke over him as if she hadn’t realized he was speaking. Robb wondered if she ever registered that he was still there. “I barely knew the twins growing up. The only people I had at the Rock were Tyrion and Tywin, and Tyrion, while a wonderful brother, was still a child himself and had his own difficulties plaguing him. The moment I was out of the nursery, all of the maids and septas and nurses were gone. My every waking hour was spent at my father’s feet.”

The idea of Tywin Lannister caring so intimately for a child was disturbing with every notion Robb had of the man, and he found himself shifting uncomfortable on his makeshift stool as he tried to grapple with the idea. 

“In meetings with his council, I would be sat in a chair playing with dolls. He taught me to ride a horse while heading out to deal with bandits on the Gold Road. I learned to read by peering over his shoulder at the ledgers of the Rock.” A fond smile pulled the corner of (Y/n)’s lips. “He was as strict and harsh as you imagine, but he was always fair.” 

(Y/n) turned then, turned her whole body around to face Robb, as if she needed to be sure he heard her every word perfectly clearly. “He did not raise me to be just anyone. He raised me to be him. You see, my father did not raise me to be some poor beggar’s wife, because I was not supposed to beg. He did not raise me to fall for the first knight in shining armor who rode to my rescue, because I did not need anyone to rescue me. I was never going to work as handmaiden to another lady like any unmarried second daughter would, because I was not going to bow in service to any house. I wasn’t even raised to be the wife of a lord, especially a Lord Paramount and Warden as you.” 

Therein lied their problem. Robb could have guessed from her earlier rejections that Tywin did not raise (Y/n) to marry him, not that he would have guessed Tywin raised her. The Lannisters’ influence was evident in her every word, but from the tales, Tywin didn’t seem the fatherly type. Robb just assumed the similarities were a familial trait.

“You can ask.”

“What?” Robb looked on with a heavy crease in his brow that reminded (Y/n) of the constantly heavy appearance of his father. It didn’t suit Robb’s lighter feature the way it suited Ned Stark’s. Robb shared too much of his mother.

“Why. You can ask why. I know you’ve wanted to since I stepped in that room with your parents and the King.”

She was right. It had been the one thing eating at him. Robb liked to think he was good looking enough, kind enough, strong enough. He would be one of the four Wardens one day. Her father already controlled the West.  Jon Arryn’s son in the East was far too young. It only left Robb or Doran Martell’s son. The Martell’s were certainly richer, but their lands and armies were much smaller. More than that, they despised the Lannisters even more than his father. The only hope (Y/n) could have for a better match than Robb Stark was Crown Prince Joffrey himself. Still, he was her nephew, and Robert already intended him for Sansa. Being her soulmate, baring her name on his arm, should have been an afterthought.

“Why?” Robb didn’t hesitate to pose the question.

“Because my father raised me to be him in all things.”

Robb took a second longer than he probably should have before his eyes widened. “You can’t honestly mean…”

“Jaime is sworn to hold no lands, and Cersei is the queen. In a perfect kingdom, I would have been born a son, but even as a daughter, he still prefers me to Tyrion.”

“You’re the heir to the Rock.” Robb said in disbelief. “The Warden of the West.”

“Yes.”

“That’s not possible.” He murmured, more to himself than her, as he lowered his head to staring at the ground in complete shock.

(Y/n) couldn’t hold back as her eyes rolled in her head. “I assure you it is.”

“How?”

“Cerelle Lannister already set the precedent. She was an only child at the age of three when Tybolt died, and the Rock fell to her by way of a regent. She did not live to maturity to rule for herself, but she allowed for female inheritance.”

“Even if you discount your twin siblings, Tyrion is a male and your elder.” Robb insisted on pointing out.

(Y/n) nodded, “Yes, but he does not want the damned thing, thinks I’m better suited to it anyhow. Once I marry, he’ll recuse himself from the line of succession, and I will be left as the last alternative.”

“Won’t your uncle object?” Robb motioned up towards the keep. “He has sons; does he not? Robert Baratheon’s squire. Surely he would expect to be the next heir.”

“Kevan knows of all of this, and he does not object. That is rather the point.” (Y/n) referred back to her earlier ramblings, “I was raised for this, made for this, born for this. In the Westerlands, they already know not to question me. They know I am my father’s daughter in every way. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of Westeros falls in line, and it begins with Robert Baratheon.”

“When he struck you?” Robb bit out.

(Y/n) ground her teeth, “Yes, not how I intended to acquaint myself with our king, but since it has happened, it will have to serve a purpose.” A smirk pulled at the corner of her lips, pulling away the noise of her teeth rubbing together, “I am a Lannister after all, and I now owe the King a debt.”

“Why are you telling me all of this?” In honesty, it probably should have occurred to Robb to ask sooner. His mate or not, she was a Lannister, as she loved to remind him.

(Y/n) pondered the question for a moment. “I don’t really know,” she confessed. “Under normal circumstances, there would be no reason to reject a match to you, but these aren’t normal circumstances. Maybe it’s that you deserve to know what the circumstances are. I suppose you have a right to know these things. They aren’t just things about me, after all. They are about us.”

“I suppose there’s no hope for a change of circumstances?” Robb smiled to try to lighten the mood. The expression on both of their faces had quickly turned sullen, and he didn’t want what little time he had with his soulmate to be wasted dwelling on dark memories. He would never know her the way he wanted to, but he could at least know her as a friend.

“Only if you’re willing to forsake your inheritance, remove your sigil, leave your family, and follow me to Casterly Rock where you and your children will be known as Lannisters and never be allowed to bear the name Stark?” It was a rather blunt answer, but she said it in such a teasingly optimistic tone that it only lightened the mood further with amusement.

“No,” Robb smirked. “I don’t suppose I would. Perhaps you would turn your back on your father, give up becoming the most powerful woman in Westeros, force Tyrion to become heir to the Rock, leave your gold and all your other lavish Southern possessions and join me in the cold, barren North for the boring life of an incredibly traditional lady?”

Part of him hoped she would say yes, but he wasn’t surprised when she responded with a tinkling laugh of, “No. I don’t suppose I would.”

“Shame,” he smiled to himself. “Perhaps I shall pray to the old gods that my father and the King manage to steal you out from under the lion’s paw by distracting him with something shiny.”

(Y/n) playfully rolled her eyes at him. Her tone was one of fake exasperation, “Perhaps I shall pray to the new gods that Ned Stark doesn’t wet himself when my father arrives or all hope of convincing Tywin to rob Winterfell of its heir will be ruined by his impression of your family.”

The image of his father being scared by anyone’s arrival in their home was amusing enough, but the image of Lord Tywin Lannister dressed head to toe in gold, wiping another man’s piss of his boots was almost too much for Robb. Within a few moments, Robb’s loud guffaw sent both of them into a fit of laughter that was far too loud given the time of night. It ceased rather suddenly only one a loud whinny went up from the stables behind them to sign the horses’ discontent.

“He can’t truly have enough power to work such a thing, even with the help of gods.” Robb’s tone was still light, but there was an underlying question to it that (Y/n) immediately picked up on. He’d never been to the South. He’d never been to royal court, so he didn’t really know the answer to his unspoken question outside of tall tales. How much power did Tywin Lannister truly wield?

“For decades, a Targaryen wore the crown and wielded all the power in Westeros, while my father sat on the Iron Throne and kept the Kingdoms running as their Hand. Now the roles have reversed. Robert Baratheon and his man of choice might sit on the Iron Throne. They might run the Seven Kingdoms, but they know where the crown, where the power, truly lies.”  

“Seven Kingdoms united in fear of Tywin Lannister.” Robb repeated the famous saying. “I don’t think you’ll find the North afraid.” 

“Only because you haven’t met him yet,” (Y/n) smiled to herself. “If they don’t fear him when he arrives, they will by the time he leaves, just as they do everywhere else.”

(Y/n) pushed herself to her feet. She took a moment to brush her skirts back down into position and rid them of any obvious dirt. Then, Robb watched her turn and walk away, calling back over her shoulder, “When you see Lannister banners on the horizon of Winterfell tomorrow, watch the King.”

* * *

 

The banners of House Lannister broke the horizon, signifying the approach of the Warden of the West. 

The only thought in Robert’s mind was that this would surely be the day he died. Robert might be a fool, but he wasn’t so mad as Aerys to think that Tywin Lannister ever truly came in peace.

Tywin had taken the lives of every man, woman, and child from two of the Westerlands’ richest and oldest houses, and he had done so with a smile. All over some gold that was a drop in the bucket to House Lannister’s riches. Tywin had sacked King’s Landing and slaughtered the royal family, including his oldest friend, because Aerys forced him to remarry a beautiful young woman. Slights by comparison to Robert’s offense. 

Robert Baratheon had struck the Lady of Casterly Rock, Tywin’s daughter and youngest child, in front of her mate, the Heir to Winterfell no less. She still bore the bruise. 

At the least, Tywin would have his offending hand. At the worst, he would end Robert’s dynasty. Robert feared both were within the Lannister’s grasp.

As (Y/n) had told him to do, Robb watched his namesake. Robert Baratheon was a large man and a warrior at heart. He had long grown fat and let himself go with the pressures of the crown and the grief of his loss, but that hadn’t made him any less the man who killed Rhaegar Targaryen. 

Robb thought Robert was not one to be easily intimidated, but as he watched, he saw the Baratheon’s stern face begin to crack. He saw what (Y/n) had sent him searching for. Fear. The King of the Seven Kingdoms was afraid of Tywin Lannister.


	3. Pressing Matters

The group that stood in the yard numbered only fifteen: Lord and Lady Stark, Robb, the King, two Kingsguard, the Lannister siblings, and their five senior soldiers.

The King had ordered the court to remain inside. He made his excuses about the weather and the cold in the air, and even though none were fooled, none defied his orders.

The small insult of no formal greeting, no fitting welcome worthy of a Lord Paramount, was one of the few slights the King could truly manage to bestow on the Lannisters without repercussion, without major repercussions rather. The Lannister siblings took nothing, even the most trivial affront, lying down. They returned the King’s favor by signaling their father’s approach well in advance of his party breaking the horizon and forcing the King and the Starks to wait in the late summer chill for a frivolous amount of time.

It was a petty retort, to be sure; but it agitated the King to no end, proving its effectiveness.

The Lannister siblings only joined the waiting line once their father’s group was clearly in view approaching the gate.

Cersei appeared first. Taking slow, deliberate steps from the keep, the deadly look in her eyes dared anyone to challenge her for her tardiness; and even her husband shied away from the obvious provocation. She stood beside him dressed all in gold and wrapped in a coat that appeared to be stitched from the hide of a stag. The material wasn’t as grand as the usual attire of the queen, but the message, wearing the dead skin of her husband’s sigil, was there.  

Tyrion followed on Cersei’s heels. His appearance was nothing to be noted, but his sobriety was. The word of his father’s impending arrival had sapped all drink from Tyrion’s cup in the days prior, and he stood before the Northmen and the King all with a cool, calculating gaze that none had ever seen before. The drunken disgrace of House Lannister was no more, replaced with a dark, intelligent man. He stood several places down from the rest, leaving space beside the Starks.

Jaime came last, with his younger sister on his arm, as she had been every time she had been forced into the King’s presence since their collision. The knight was dressed in Lannister garb, a black tunic with gold stitching that matched the gold in the House Lannister coat of arms on his heavy winter cloak.

The Kingslayer had been wearing his house’s colors since he’d returned from the Maester’s with (Y/n). The King had relieved him of his duties as Kingsguard for the preparation and duration of his father’s visit, however long that proved to be; and the Lannister had taken full advantage of his moderate freedom by forming a united front with his three siblings.

(Y/n) wore her brother’s tunic in reverse. A gorgeous golden gown that trailed behind her just as far as Jaime’s cloak, with a black, laced embroidery of lionesses dancing along its hem; a single lion sat proudly displayed on her chest in the traditional pose of her house. It was the sort of Southern gown that Robb knew Sansa would die for, and seeing it on his mate he could almost understand why. In the light of day, glittering in the reflection of her golden fabrics, (Y/n)’s beauty demanded to be noticed. It demanded attention, and Robb was powerless to deny her it.

This, the four siblings dressed just so, poised just so, acting just so, was Lannister at its finest. It was no wonder the King wanted none to witness Tywin’s arrival. None would be there to witness the true majesty of House Lannister, none except themselves and the Starks.

 “With all of your duties, it has been some time since you’ve seen your father.” Robb was unsure why his mother had taken to polite conversation with the Kingslayer, but since she’d witnessed the King strike (Y/n), Catelyn had gone out of her way to speak with the Kingsguard and his half-man brother. Speaking to them in a way she had not bothered before with them and had not bothered since with their sisters. “You must be happy seeing him again.”

Jaime’s back straightened as the metal of the gate before them creaked to a stop. He spoke bluntly and with no explanation, “Happy is not the word.”

He was here, following behind two squires carrying his house’s red banners as they rode in, with three knights at his back.

Broad shoulders and toned build of any born knight. Blonde hair and green eyes of any Lannister. Presence and confidence of only The Great Lion. There was no mistaking him for anyone else, and there was no mistaking anyone else for him.

If his children appeared exalted on their arrival. If (Y/n) acted as though everyone was beneath her, if Jaime seemed to be the golden knight of every tall tale, if Cersei looked to be the elegant royal. Their father didn’t try.

He didn’t appear exalted; he was exalted. He didn’t act as though everyone was beneath him; there was no acting required. He seemed the golden knight because he was the knight from the tall tales. He didn’t just look the part of royalty. He lived it.

Tywin Lannister rode through the gates of Winterfell in full metal armor, draped in the red sash marking the Lord of the Rock. Everything about the man, down to his white horse, was polished and pristine.

“Watch the King.” (Y/n) had told Robb the night before.

Robb started to wonder if ‘watch the king’ had meant ‘watch Robert’ at all. After all, she had told him Robert Baratheon was not a king, but a sheep. Robb was starting to agree.

The king should bow to no man.

As they approached, Robert Baratheon bowed his head to Tywin Lannister, and when Tywin Lannister dismounted his war horse, the favor was not returned.

“Lord Tywin,” Robert grunted as the senior nobleman approached. There was a tension to the Baratheon’s voice that told the entire court present exactly what he _wanted_ to say to the Lannister but couldn’t.

Tywin tossed his reins to one of the squires and traipsed over in front the King. “Your Grace.”

Silence prevailed for several long moments, and no one else was brave enough to break it.

The rich lord with more money than the gods and the warrior king who saved the Kingdoms from certain destruction. Looking down on the pair facing off, anyone watching would have guessed their roles were reversed.

 “You arrived far sooner than we expected, Tywin. Rushed?”

“Quite,” Tywin mused, entirely uninterested. “You see,” his voice lowered as he drew himself up, “I have a debt to pay.” Drawing to their full heights, Robert only came up to the bottom of the Lord’s nose, and Tywin used the extra length to look down on the heavier man with a hard, knowing look. It was the sort of look that made small children burst into tears, that made respectable ladies turn and run. It was the sort of look that made lesser men fall to their knees.

The King wasn’t given time to prove if he was the lesser man, for Lady Catelyn spoke.

“Lord Tywin,” Catelyn’s voice did nothing to cut the tension in the air, but it did draw eyes to her, “You will have to forgive us that we only have rooms in our keep for three. Your arrival is a most welcome surprise, and many rooms were already taken by the royal court when we heard of your journey.”

Tywin nodded to the Lady of Winterfell, stiff but no less gracious. “I am sure we will manage well. It is an honor to be welcomed into your home.”

“Perhaps, I could arrange for my sons to show you to your rooms. Casterly Rock is a long journey which you and your men have made in record time. You must wish to rest before the feast tonight.”

Robb kept his eyes straight ahead as he felt the piercing green gaze of Tywin Lannister trail over him. He didn’t know what Tywin knew of him, but he assumed Tywin knew all. It seemed a safe assumption.   

“That won’t be necessary.” Tywin dismissed immediately, eyes still on Robb. “I had occasion to visit Rickard Stark several times in my years as Hand;” Tywin offered his arm without turning, and Queen Cersei quickly removed herself from Robert to accept it. “I am sure I will find my way.”

The Lannisters filed out without reply. Tywin led the procession with his eldest on his arm, Jaime and (Y/n) directly on their heels, Tyrion following behind chatting amicably with one of his father’s men.

They left as quickly as they arrived, as though they did not need to be given leave, as if it was not the King left in their wake, and now, in Robb’s eyes, it was not.

* * *

 

“Leave us.”

Tywin had not waited even a moment before he sent away the group crowded into his tight guest chambers. The moment Tyrek had handed him his bag, Tywin ordered the others’ to follow the boy before Tyrek had even reached the door.

“Father,” Cersei began to protest immediately. She always protested exclusion, even in matters not involving her.

How Cersei found it within herself to raise her voice (Y/n) would never know. She often thought her elder half-sister quite brave in the way she dealt with her station as Queen, with her place in King’s Landing, and with her husband’s many afflictions. Then, Cersei would stand before their father, open her mouth, and remind (Y/n) that bravery and stupidity were easily confused.

“Cersei,” Jaime stepped up to his twin’s arm, warning in his tone. There were many things which Jaime did not understand. However, battle was one thing at which he excelled beyond all, and he knew enemy territory when he saw it. Winterfell was enemy territory, and it was no place to fight one’s allies.

“Listen to your brother,” Tywin ordered without batting an eye. He was far more preoccupied unpacking the saddle bag his squire had delivered to him. “Escort the boys and Ser Harwyn to the barracks if you wish. It should give you a moments’ more peace from your husband.”

Cersei visibly disapproved of the task, but the prospect of a reprieve from Robert was enough to secure Jaime’s pulling her to the exit.

“Father,” Tyrion, a silent witness as he usually was, nodded and turned to follow his elder twins.

“Tell the Mountain to stand watch.” Tywin called after his son. “No one need disturb or hear us here.”

The door swung shut, but not before (Y/n) watched Tyrion order a familiar, hulking figure to stand the breadth of the doorway outside in the hall. Leather and metal filled her vision with no obvious breaks between arms, torsos, or legs; only long bones and heavy muscles.

The moment the door latched secure, the satisfying thud as the wood hit stone, (Y/n) felt the tension in her shoulders relax.

Every moment since she left Casterly Rock had been a moment on guard. Riding with the King’s men had been a show of her skill on horseback. Arriving in Winterfell had been a display of prowess and nobility. Confronting the King had been an exercise in strategy and restraint. Singing with her soldiers had been a show to earn their trust and loyalty. Telling Robb Stark stories had been an attempt to make him understand her position.

Every moment had required forethought and attention. Nothing had been done for herself; nothing had been done out of emotion. She had been holding a mask in place in front of the North, the King, her mate, even her own family. With Tywin here, she could finally let it slip.

Tywin Lannister was never a man to knowingly offer anyone comfort, but (Y/n) took great comfort in his presence. She thought, perhaps naively, that the sentiment might be returned. In all of Westeros, she was the only person who had never let him down, never disappointed him; and they both knew she never would, whatever small comfort her unwavering loyalty provided him.

(Y/n) knew of only three people in the Seven Kingdoms who her father genuinely trusted. She was one of them, and his brother and sister were the other two.

“Uncle Kevan,” She addressed the third person remaining in the room. “I was not expecting you to make the journey.”

Kevan leaned against the wooden door, presumably keeping an ear for any noise on the other side. “Genna watches the Rock in our absence. She will miss the assistance, but it was a necessary evil.”

“She is more than capable of the task.” (Y/n) turned to her father who sat on the edge of his bed, deep in thought. “I assume she will not be alone much longer.”

“No,” Tywin confirmed. “This will not take us long.”

Certainty was not a word (Y/n) often associated with her father. He spent his life planning every eventuality, closing every loophole, filling every gap. Even when his idea was executed perfectly, he still saw room for improvement; but not today. Today his mind was set.

“Should I ask?” (Y/n) directed the question to Kevan.

Kevan shrugged. “You will know tomorrow.”

Clapping her hands together, (Y/n) changed the discussion. “Then might we discuss more pressing matters.”

“What matters,” Tywin looked up and narrowed his gaze on her, “could possibly be more pressing than the bruise that drunk left on your cheek.”

(Y/n) leaned forward, elbows to her knees. It was often that she found herself in these positions, and she imagined herself the only person living who could speak so casually and openly to Tywin Lannister without the slightest hint of fear. “Jon Arryn.”

“What about the old man?” Kevan rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. “It was his time to die. I doubt you are in mourning.”

“I assure you I’m not in mourning considering I killed him.”

Kevan froze, but Tywin paused for only a moment, “Should I ask?” He repeated her question back to her, a darker tone to his voice than hers had held.

“My reasons were just and are known to me alone.” (Y/n) assured her father, her words warning him not to press the matter, “It is best they stay that way, though I fear that will not be the case if matters are allowed to progress unimpeded.”

Kevan interrupted the silent debate he saw going on between the eyes of his brother and his niece. “And how would you impede them?”

“A knight of no significance will need to be disposed of immediately,” (Y/n) gestured to the door behind Kevan. “I’m sure that will be of little consequence,” she hinted at the Mountain on the other side.

Tywin rolled his eyes at her answer. “There’s more.” He pressed his daughter. “You do not make mistakes, but even a flawless plan has more risk than one knight.”

(Y/n) assented to that with a tip of her head. “Ned Stark as Hand may pose a problem. I am of the understanding Ned Stark cared for Jon Arryn, and the man’s honor will no doubt be of mind to look into his cause of death.”

“A cause of death which was?” Kevan traversed the room to occupy the seat across the table from (Y/n).

“Poison,” She replied nonchalantly. “Maester Pycelle no doubt knows the truth of it, but even he does not know it was me, only that it is in Lannister interest that Jon Arryn be laid to rest in peace.”

Tywin stared into the stone floor thoughtfully as he spoke, “And Ned Stark may find proof of this poison?”

“No,” (Y/n) countered, “but he is the only man in Westeros who might find my cause for it.”

“And you are sure he is the only risk?” Kevan questioned.

“I am certain of it. He is no threat in Winterfell, and no one else is threat as Hand.”

“We must dissuade him then,” Tywin rapidly came to the conclusion.

(Y/n)’s eyes narrowed in on her father. “An easy explanation but not an easy execution, Father.” She pointed out. “His honor and duty outweigh all, and both belong to the Baratheon.”

Tywin shook his head and pulled himself to his feet, a sign the matter was closed. “Before this visit, I would have agreed.” Tywin touched his lower cheek, along his jaw, where Robert had struck (Y/n), “But he was there to bare witness to Robert’s crime.” Tywin brushed his own hand away with shake of his head, “No, no, that will not be allowed to stand. Lannister or not, Robert struck a young lady, struck his son’s mate, struck Ashara’s daughter. We only need remind him that the Baratheons are not worth serving over his own family, and he will,” Tywin added emphatically, “see you as family.”

“He will see me as family for Robb already?” (Y/n) asked, perplexed.

“For Ashara,” Tywin corrected. “You speak with him. Reminisce on your mother.”

(Y/n) looked to Kevan for explanation but found her uncle turned away, forlorn. “Why?” Usually, she followed her father’s orders without question, and she would still follow this one though it confused her beyond measure.

“Because, my daughter,” Tywin slowly, deliberately rolled up his sleeve, showing her where Johanna’s name had burned away, showing her his mate. “It is your mother’s name Lord Stark bares.”

* * *

 

(Y/n) found Ned Stark in the crypts.

As best she could, she made it seem as though she stumbled upon him. Looking around aimlessly at the statues of Stark gone by, she wandered row after row, weaving her way between the long departed and recently passed. Lords looked down on her with judgment in their eyes, and she knew she should feel shame for what she planned to do. The grey, unseeing eyes of Donnor Stark, staring down on her from his mighty pose, certainly thought so.

She knew what she was supposed to feel, but she felt nothing as she walked amongst the bones. What she planned was harsh, exploitive even, but it was necessary. The Starks of the past might look on her ashamed to have their name on her arm, but that was only because Starks could not see past their honor to what needed to be done.

In that way, she would never be a Stark, and that was one point on which all involved could agree.

“That one is my brother.”

(Y/n) forced herself to jump in surprise, forced herself to look as though she had been the one caught rather than the one searching.

“Forgive me, Lord Stark,” She bowed her head in greeting. “I had thought myself alone.”

Ned walked in the light of his torch, looking around at the former Lords of Winterfell. “One is never truly alone in this place. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes,” (Y/n) looked up at the statue before her. “I would say so.” She paused for a moment, feigning confusion. “Brandon Stark, is it not?”

Ned nodded in response. “He was never Lord of Winterfell, but he should have been. That is why I buried him in this place.”

(Y/n) smiled sadly up at the departed man. “The stories of him always reminded me of Jaime, though I doubt that’s what you wish to hear.”

She did not have to wait long before Ned’s gaze narrowed, poorly concealing a hint of anger. “Why would my brother’s duty remind you of the Kingslayer’s betrayal?”

“Brandon bent the knee before the Mad King and swore his loyalty to Aerys. Your brother forsook just as many vows and committed treason just as much as mine, and they did so for the same reasons: family.” (Y/n) looked up at Ned Stark not that he would meet her. “Brandon, Jaime, they were meant to bare the burdens that fall to you and I. They were the ones born for this, yet here we both stand where they should.”

Ned Stark was an open book, an easy one to read. His face contorted in disgust, and he looked away from (Y/n) quickly. “I think that a simple and convenient explanation.”

“Perhaps,” (Y/n) conceded, “but isn’t that all history is. The story that suits the victor.” Sliding her feet back, (Y/n) leaned against the wall behind her, watching Ned with an openly curious expression. “They tell me you were the victor.”

Ned turned away from his family to face her, nothing but cold. “Victor over what?”

“Victor over my uncle.”

She had him.  

Ned’s face dropped in an instant. The tension in his brow disappeared, the angry quirk fell from his lips, his eyes hit the floor. (Y/n) knew that face well. She’d seen it many times before.

Shame.

“Everyone makes a great fuss over calling him the ‘Sword of the Morning’, you know,” She continued as though she didn’t see the change in him. “The truth is, it’s only a title. Dawn, our ancestral sword, does not pass to the heirs of Starfall like most swords, like Ice,” she gestured to where the sword would have hung at Ned’s side. “It’s bestowed on any knight of House Dayne considered worthy enough to wield it, and they are all called ‘Sword of the Morning’. There have been dozens of them, but Arthur is the only one anyone will remember. There are even whispers of retiring the name when Dawn is given to the next worthy man.”

(Y/n) slowly sunk till she was seated on the dirt floor; Ned unconsciously mimicking her as he sat in the earth. “I always wondered, had he lived, who would have won the duel. Arthur or Jaime. They say Arthur was the greatest knight the Seven had ever seen, and they say my brother is the greatest swordsmen Westeros will ever know. I wonder which would prove true.”

 She let the words hang in the air for less than a moment before she added, “Of course, the stories say you bested Arthur handily with time yet to slay Ser Gerold Hightower.” (Y/n) diverted her eyes to her hands as she felt Ned staring her down. “Whatever the true story, you walked away that day, and Arthur died. So I suppose, that answers my question.”

“Your uncle was a good man,” Ned rumbled in a voice deeper than (Y/n) recalled him having, “an honorable man. We offered him life, but he fought to his death to keep his vows.”

(Y/n) scoffed, “What honor is there in death, what honor is there in service if it hurts the ones you love. They say my mother died giving birth, but that’s just another story told by the victors, told by my father.”

She looked on Ned with an all-consuming rage, an anger that put the older man leaning away on palms. “I remember my mother. I remember tottering along the cliffs with her that day, barely keeping my feet under me. I remember a messenger running out to meet us with my brother on his heels. I remember them giving my mother the news. ‘Her mate, Eddard Stark, had murdered her brother.’ So they said.” She watched a tear roll down Ned’s cheek, but she kept going without delay, “I remember her screams, her pain. I remember the feeling of falling, the feeling of her hand in mine as she jumped from the cliffs still holding me; and I remember Tyrion leaping after me, wrenching me from her grasp while a servant clutched at him coats so we didn’t fall in after her.”

A tear forced its way out of the corner of her eye. Fake or real, she could not tell anymore. “Tell me, Lord Stark. What good is your loyalty to the crown, honor to your vows, if your family pays the price?”

Ned Stark, like his son before him, had no answer for (Y/n), and she quickly rose to her feet leaving him alone in the dust. “My mother paid the price. Do not make your children pay another.”

Kevan was waiting for her, lounging at the entrance of the crypts, “And?”

(Y/n) wiped the tears from her cheeks, taking only a moment to recompose her features. “I told him a story.”

“And?” Kevan rolled his eyes at the lack of explanation.

(Y/n) shrugged, accepting Kevan’s arm in escort. “And he believed it.”

* * *

 

The feast was no less crowded than usual, but the volume of the celebrations had all but died. A number of the raucous Northmen had been forced out to make room for the far more diligent Lannister soldiers who usually dined outside by the fire with (Y/n). The shouts of Arya, Bran, and Rickon had been sent away early with their bastard brother to give seats at the high table to the silence of Tywin, Kevan, and the Mountain.

Jaime, usually on guard during the feasting, had taken up a home at the long table with his soldiers, but the rest of his siblings sat in their usual chairs. Cersei by her king husband, (Y/n) beside the heir of Winterfell, and Tyrion at the end of the table, now seated next to his uncle instead of the child Rickon.

With Sansa sat beside Joffrey at the King’s side, Tywin’s place was at (Y/n)’s right. They did not openly speak, but occasionally Robb would see (Y/n) lean over to her father and whisper something in his ear that brought a variety of emotions to the old man’s face. He never returned her comments, but his features seemed to tell his daughter enough to answer her questions every time.

The entire mood of the hall had been altered to one of silence and secrecy. Even that which was not under Tywin’s direct influence had been changed.

In another small insult to the Lord of the Rock, Robert Baratheon had given his skilled, Southern musicians a night’s reprieve. Sat in the music box at the corner of the hall were the typical Northern music troop, the ones who had taken leave to sit outside with the Lannisters for the last weeks. Their playing was satisfactory to Robb’s untrained ear, but the change of pace had certainly had a negative affect on the royal court’s mood. Every piece was met with some disapproval.

A tankard of Northern ale slammed on the table, silencing the tune of the _Wolves in the Hills_. “Enough of this Northern fair,” Robert ordered in a slurred speech. If Tywin’s presence had served to sober his youngest son, it had done the opposite for the King. “We have Lannisters in our midst. We should welcome them properly.” A floppy wave of his arm in the air brought all conversation in the hall to an end. “Play the _Rains_.”

Tywin looked down on his daughter with a sneer meant for the King and spoke for the first time that night, so quiet only (Y/n) and Robb, on her other side, could hear. “Handle this disgrace.”

The musicians were too occupied reseting their instruments to notice as (Y/n) Lannister pushed to her feet, but the rest of the hall held their breath in a silence even quieter than the King’s wave had commanded.

Stepping down, (Y/n) approached the lead harpist with steps so noiseless that the man jumped when he looked up to see her.

“My Lady,” Robb made out the words on his lips before the man bowed.

Whatever passed between the Lady and the man was quick and without words. They shared a look, and she slipped him a small coin. That was the matter settled.

A slice of their leader’s hand through the air ordered all the other musicians to cease their movements as he alone began to pluck the strings and play the _Rains of Castamere_.

(Y/n) remained facing the harpist as she sang. “ _And who are you, the proud lord said, that I must bow so low? Only a cat of a different coat, that’s all the truth I know_.”

Robb knew his mate could sing. He had heard the _Song of the Seven_ she performed with the squire that first night he found her, but this was different. It was personal, emotional, haunting.

She sang with a grief, with a vengeance, with the rage of a battle she was not there to witness. “ _In a coat of gold or a coat of red, a lion still has claws. And mine are long and sharp, my lord, as long and sharp as yours_.”

Her head turned to the high table, but her body remained in place. She looked past Robb to the center, and he knew exactly who her words were for: the King. “ _And so he spoke, and so he spoke, that lord of Castamere. But now the rains weep o’er his hall, and not a soul to hear_.”

(Y/n) walked slowly past the table as the notes of the harp echoed off the stone. The sound would have made most think that Winterfell was Castamere, that Winterfell was the empty hall where none lived to see the rains fall.

“ _And who are you, the proud lord said, that I must bow so low? Only a cat of a different coat, that’s all the truth I know_.” Her voice rushed over the court and sent a chill down every spine as they all remembered the tale behind the song.

She came to a stop at her brother’s shoulder, at the top of the Lannister table, “ _And so he spoke, and so he spoke, that lord of Castamere. But now the rains weep o’er his hall, and not a soul to hear_.”

The harpist began to play out the song to its close, but as he plucked the final notes, the Lannister soldiers joined their Lady, as if cued, “ _And so he spoke, and so he spoke, that lord of Castamere. But now the rains weep o’er his hall, and not a soul to hear_.”

The deeper tone of their voices gave (Y/n) a chance to sing atop their voices in a higher pitch, a haunting pitch that would echo in the ears of all when next they heard the song without her there, “ _And so he spoke, and so he spoke, that lord of Castamere. But now the rains weep o’er his hall, and not a soul to hear_.” The men’s voices died off as (Y/n) finished, “ _And not a soul to hear_.”

Any other song, any other singer, would have gotten standing applause from all who heard such skill, but as (Y/n) resumed her seat at the high table, she received only quiet claps around the hall out of a polite show of respect.

Because everyone, even the Northerners unskilled in the lies and deceits of King’s Landing, could see past this façade. Even they knew what the song was. A warning.

Winter was coming, but the Lannisters were already here.

* * *

 

Ser Barristan Selmy was on watch at Robert Baratheon’s door the next morning when Tywin Lannister finally arrived to speak with the King.

It had been Lord Tywin who called the meeting, but as seemed the usual with the Lannisters, they liked to wait on no one and had arrived last.

Lord and Lady Stark were already inside the King’s chambers with their heir and Winterfell’s Maester when the entire Lannister family arrived, flanked by Ser Gregor Clegane and Ser Harwyn Plumm.

“I would ask the guards remain outside,” Barristan rested his hand on the hilt of his sword in warning.

“If you wish, Ser Barristan,” Tywin acquiesced without complaint, taking his family past the Kingsguard while Harwyn and Gregor remained outside.

The sight that greeted the family was a familiar one for (Y/n) and Jaime. The King lounged, bored, at the desk in the corner. The Starks, joined this time by their Maester, were scattered about the room in what (Y/n) could only assume to be their usual spots given how naturally they had assumed the positions twice now.

“Your Grace,” Tywin waited for the door to shut behind Tyrion in last position before he spoke. “We’ve come to discuss recent events with you that cannot go unspoken.”

The King’s eyes hardened. “Is that why you called us all here? To exact your debts in front of the Lord and Lady of Winterfell?”

Tywin placated in a calm tone one might us on a child in tantrum, not that his tone had ever been so kind when his own children had tantrums. “No, Your Grace. We merely believed the matter was one which deeply involved House Stark and warranted their inclusion.”

“Then this is about the arms?” Robert seemed skeptical. Even he wasn’t so thick as to assume Tywin would forgive.

Tywin merely gave a nod. “Your Grace, it has come to my attention you wished my daughter marry into House Stark at once upon her arrival at Winterfell.”

“I wished your daughter to marry a match made by the gods that even you can’t buy a change,” Robert growled out against the accusation. “Do not worry. Your pet denied my offer and denied her chosen mate happiness. You’ve trained her well.”

(Y/n) gave no sign she’d heard the King’s words. They were meant to invoke a rise in her, she knew. Last time she had been in this room, it was she who got the better of his emotions, and the King was looking for his turn. A turn (Y/n) was determined not to give him. He truly knew nothing of her and her family if he thought referring to her as a dog performing her father’s tricks was accurate enough to warrant her wrath.

“My daughter meant no offense, I assure you.” Tywin lied smoothly. “Any confusion over her response was simply a misunderstanding. You see, my daughter knew it was not her place to offer her hand as it had already been promised.”

The King sat straighter in his chair. Catelyn stiffened in her chair. Ned glared down Tywin, but Robb simply looked away. He knew something like this was coming.

“Your daughter,” The King fumed, “is betrothed, and said nothing to me?”

“She was only aware of my conversations. Not it’s confirmation.”

Untrue, of course. (Y/n) hadn’t known her father’s plan until she heard it spoken for the first time with the other occupants of the room. Her rejections of the King had been exactly as Robert thought, affronts to his authority. It was only years of practice devoted to the arts of politics and deception that kept her face trained into its usual pacification.

 “Ser Harwyn Plumm,” Tywin motioned to the door, “is just outside if you wish to meet the man. He is a third born son and valiant knight of House Lannisters’ most loyal ally, and he has known my daughter her entire life, saved her life on occasion even.”

“A third born?” The King’s lips curled in disgust. “You deny your daughter her mate, the future Warden of the North, lord of more country than any man in the Seven, for a landless knight of a lesser house.”

Tywin turned his eyes on Ned Stark. “I assure you I gave the man my word that my daughter would marry him before we ever knew of your son, Lord Stark. My daughter is an honorable soul who does not wish to break that vow.”

It was rare that (Y/n) had cause to see her father in this light. Usually, debates of policy required only Tywin’s presence to see their resolution; occasionally he would need to glare; but never anything more. This sight was a first. Tywin Lannister actually needing to play the room, but he did it with a practiced ease.

“And we would not wish to dishonor her so,” Ned conceded easily but not without pain.

“Then it appears the matter is settled.”

Robert shifted between his old friend and his old enemy with shock and anger. “That is it then? She marries the Plumm boy?”

(Y/n) wanted to hear the words almost as little as Robb, but they both knew from their talks that there was no escaping this fate. They needed only to accept it.

“Yes, Your Grace, sooner would be better.”

Robert scoffed. “If Ned willingly gives it, you have my leave to wed her when she is back in your mines.”

“Actually, Your Grace,” Tywin barely hid his smirk. There was nothing to see outwardly, but (Y/n) heard the uptick in his tone that signaled what was coming. Tywin Lannister was paying a debt. “That is why I’ve brought the Maester. Lord Mace Tyrell is only a few days ride behind myself with enough food and drink to replenish and overflow Winterfell’s stores. We wished the royal court to see their union.”

Understanding flashed in Robert’s eyes for a moment before it died in confusion, “What are you saying?”

“I am saying that (Y/n) will be married here. Immediately. In the Sept of Winterfell.”


	4. The Bedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter comes with warnings that do not apply to any other chapter in this story. 
> 
> This chapter is far more 'game of thrones'esque than any other chapter in this story. 
> 
> There is a description, though not too graphic of a description, of an incredibly unpleasant bedding ceremony that involves the reader's character being harassed by drunk men. 
> 
> There is also description of a sexual encounter (that is not in fact sex, just sexual) that is far more graphic, though that encounter is entirely consensual.

“Son.”

Robb looked up to see his father standing in the door. His appearance was a sign of what was to come.

In Winterfell, the Starks had very little use for fine, Southern clothes. Such garments were impractical for daily use, and what was impractical for daily use was never bothered with when meeting Northern Lords. Even the King, for all the pomp of his arrival, had only seen the Starks clean up their usual appearance. Sansa had worn one of her nicer dresses in hopes of meeting the princes, but none of the others had actually dressed up for the occasion.

The fine leather tunic, embossed with a running direwolf across the chest, which graced Ned Stark now was a piece Robb had never seen his father wear. Perhaps, he had never worn it before at all. Robb had certainly never worn the fine fur cloak around his shoulders nor the polished boots covering his feet.

“Are you ready?” Ned looked Robb over once.

“I wish Sansa could go in my stead,” Robb confessed. His head hung as he left his rooms.

Ned hummed in agreement, “I know. I wish you did not have to witness this.”

“You did not marry your mate either.” Robb pointed out.

Ned nodded confirmation, “Yes, that is true.”

“But you moved on?” Robb’s tone was questioning, hopeful.

From a young age, Robb knew his parents were not soulmates. His father had been the one to explain the name on his arm to him, and Ned had to tell Robb, rather frankly, that there was a chance he would never meet her and would almost certainly never have her. Ned Stark had been right on one of those counts, and Robb would have to accept it just as his parents had.

“I will not pretend moving on was something I did willingly.” Ned gave a heavy sigh, “It is hard to give up on the idea of a perfect life, a perfect love; but for most of us life is not meant to be that easy. You have been given a particularly hard life to lead, but the gods have given you this life for a reason. They have shown you her for a reason, and they have taken her for a reason. Finding happiness, after meeting her, will be difficult, but it is not impossible.”

Robb paused in his step, and Ned carried on another pace before he stopped and turned back to his son. “You,” Robb hesitated, “You speak from experience.” Robb never knew his father had met his mate. The name, not that Robb had ever read it, was still on his father’s arm.

Ned seemed to think for a long moment before he spoke, “I was once where you are now. I stood in a sept and watched my soulmate marry another man.”

“Where is she now?” Robb asked.

Ned didn’t answer. He turned away and waited for Robb to come back to his side before the pair walked on without another word.

* * *

The Sept of Winterfell was a small one. It had been built by Ned Stark for his new wife, Catelyn, as a gift, and had rarely been used by anyone but the Lady of Winterfell. Shoulder to shoulder, it comfortably held only sixteen, fifteen if one of those was Robert Baratheon.

The King’s only joy in being slighted by the Lannister’s had been in Tywin’s rush to marry off his daughter. Lady (Y/n), a Lannister bride as worthy of the Sept of Baelor as Princess Myrcella herself, would be forced to marry in the miniscule stone hut of a sept that heard the praises of only one woman and saw none of the splendor accustomed to (Y/n)’s station. Robert had revelled in the thought.

While even the Great Lion could not build a newer, more worthy sept in time, Tywin Lannister never truly lost. Even this small ceremony, this disadvantage, this insult to their wealth and grandeur, had proven to be to the Lannister’s benefit.

In all of Westeros, only fifteen people would be permitted to witness what Robb knew would be the wedding of the century. If the Lannisters could not display their wealth, then they would at least flaunt their superiority. The countless lords and ladies of the King’s party practically tripped over themselves to reach Tywin’s chambers first; they desperately argued and debated who was deserving to see the ceremony. Even Princess Myrcella and Prince Tommen had not made the guest list with their parents and the crown prince.

Robb had hoped he would be similarly forgotten.

Tywin Lannister himself had dashed that dream with a personal invitation extended immediately after the public announcement.

Tywin’s invitation positioned Robb between his father and Tyrion Lannister at the front of the floor, right where (Y/n) would come to stand. He was in full view of every lord and lady in the Sept and had an unobstructed eye on the woman that should have been his.

That was what Tywin wanted, and Robb knew it. He wanted Robb to know (Y/n) was not and would never be his. He wanted Robb to watch her hands join with another man, wanted Robb to hear to her swear vows to an insignificant knight. He wanted to remind Robb, and thereby his father and the King, who was really in charge.

As such, Robb was forced to watch the lumbering Harwyn Plumm march to the front of the Sept, standing in front of King Robert and Queen Cersei.

Harwyn was accompanied by Jaime Lannister, taking the place of Harwyn’s elder brothers and father as the bearer of (Y/n)’s marriage cloak.

Robb glared at the offending fabric, brought North from Casterly Rock by a soldier who had joined Mace Tyrell’s march to Winterfell. It was folded neatly under the Kingslayer’s arm, and Robb could not make out it’s texture or color. He didn’t need to see it to know what it represented, though.

It was the end, the end of any hope, not that there had ever been much.

“Rise.” The Septon was from the Riverlands, the Twins if Robb remembered correctly. There was no formal Septon at Winterfell to lead the ceremony, so Tywin had sent orders for Mace Tyrell to procure and bring a suitable man when he passed through House Frey.

Strictly speaking, the King, being above all but the gods, was not required to stand, but Robert Baratheon rose like all the rest as heads turned for (Y/n)’s entrance.

Robb’s eyes turned, and the moment he caught sight of her he desperately wished he hadn’t.

She was gorgeous, even more so than usual.

Robb had wondered, on occasion, if his attraction to her was real or if it was simply the gods’ way of drawing him to her, but even the gods, old and new, couldn’t fake such a beauty.

Her dress was a simple sheer white silk, draped more than fitted over her body. The straps were without sleeves and slipped over her shoulders as if they supported none of the weight of the fabric. Only a trail of ruching up the center between her breasts provided any support or structure for the slippery material.

The dress was topped with the only break from the immaculate white. A large piece of twisting golden metal hung from (Y/n)’s neck. Extending out over her shoulders, the vine-like twists framed her width and wove down her frame to finish in the top of the folds between her breasts. The neck piece gave a severe, serious armor, to an otherwise innocent appearance; and the polished gold of which it was made reminded the room her name.

Beautiful but Lannister.

Robb looked away.

* * *

Prayer.

Seven blessings.

Song.

Seven promises.

Song.

Seven vows.

Prayer.

Lighting the candle.

Prayer.

Robb had only been to one wedding in a sept, and he recalled it had been a similarly tedious, albeit less emotionally painful, affair.

As a child, he had gone to a wedding in White Harbor the year before Arya was born. House Manderly were the only house in the North to worship the new gods, Lord Manderly’s sister had invited the entirety of the North to their Sept to bare witness to her wedding some minor southern lord.

The lords and ladies of the North descended on White Harbour, but most respectfully declined to enter the Sept to honor gods they did not believe, instead partaking only in the feast and celebrations of the couples’ marriage.

Robb’s mother had made a point that, while her children would worship the gods of their father, they would at least understand the gods of herself and the other kingdoms. As such, Robb had sat at the front of the Sept with his mother for the entirety of the dull affair. She explained it all to him, every moment of the ceremony whispered in his young ears.

In his heart, Robb knew he would never need to know. He would not be married in a Sept. He would be married in front of the weirwood tree, alone with his wife and the gods. He would not be made to attend any Southern court or play at diplomacy in a feasting hall. All he needed to know of the Seven was their names and their purpose.

Right now, that was all Robb wished he knew. He tried desperately to forget everything his mother had taught him, to forget what came next.

Tywin Lannister stepped forward behind his daughter and reached around the front of her neck, undoing the tie holding her Lannister cloak to the metal collar of her dress.

Gently, with all the reverence the old man was capable of, he touched he folded the cloak over his arm and retreated to his place.

Harwyn Plumm raised an hand and Jaime Lannister stepped forward, draping the marriage cloak over his outstretched arm.

The cloak, in itself, was surely enough to convince most that Tywin had indeed been planning this wedding long before he sprung the news on the King.

The face was hidden, covered in the folds of the material, but the lining alone was a work of art.

Marriage cloaks were the most treasured possession of any bride. Usually far finer than her dress and equally as expensive as the entire feast.

In the South, they were works of art to be marveled. Made from the finest silks and softest satins, they only touched the earth or saw the sun for the grandest occasions. Houses used the open display of their banners to showcase their importance in any way they saw fit. A cloak’s craftsmanship testified the wealth and love her husband held for her in what he willingly invested in showing her importance.

In the North, they were pretty enough, certainly more magnificent than everyday cloaks, but they always served a function. Silks and satins were uselessly discarded for furs and wools. Worn constantly in the cold, the sigils born by the cloak spoke for themselves, the names that accompanied them carrying far greater weight than any display of prowess. Wealth and love were proven through the deed of a man keeping his wife warm, not by showing off his gold to others.

(Y/n)’s marriage cloak was a feat that North and South alike could not deny.

The lining, displayed as it fell across Harwyn’s arm, was the golden hide of a lion, many lions by its length; yet there was no seam. Tireless work had gone into creating an unbroken chain of fur. An unending field made from the skin of their sigil. Lions and gold, a golden lion, the only thing worthy of touching Lannister skin.

Harwyn took the cloak in his hands and presented its interior for the world to see.

Robb had held some amount of pride that, at the least, Harwyn would present his soulmate with an unworthy rag. Some frilly Southern thing that was not to (Y/n)’s taste or at least not to Robb’s own. The presentation of its lining removed Robb of that notion. The hide lining was a majestic thing more than fitting of the South, but more than enough to cut the chill.

With an artful flourish, surely practiced for no man of Harwyn’s size could be so graceful without help, he swung it around (Y/n)’s shoulders. (Y/n), in a small moment of defiance that Robb would cherish to his dying day, batted Harwyn’s hands away to secure the cloak in place herself.

“With this kiss,” Harwyn took (Y/n)’s hands in his and leaned into her, “I pledge my love.”

“With this kiss, I pledge my love,” (Y/n) parroted back, and their lips met. A brush so soft and swift that even Robb did not have time to feel any anger over it.

It wasn’t until the wedded pair turned to lead their guests from the Sept that everyone else present realized what Robb already knew.

The cloak around (Y/n)’s shoulders was not Harwyn Plumm’s.

Topping the fur lining of (Y/n)’s marriage cloak was a field of brilliantly crimson satin, hemmed in by a black, fur border. Stitched into the center were not the unintimidating, three purple fruits of House Plumm as it should have been, nor even the roaring lion of House Lannister.

Woven into the center of the fabric, so seemlessly it looked as though it was painted, was a proud lionness in golden thread. She leapt off her hind legs, facing out of the sigil towards the wedding guests with a vicious snarl at her teeth. A lioness on the hunt, the personal arms of Lady (Y/n) Lannister.

* * *

“How much gold do you think the Lannisters paid Plumm’s father to allow that travesty?”

To say Robert was enraged might have been an understatement of the King’s actions at the feast.

The Lannister girl’s cloak didn’t really mean much. In truth, it was far more a slight to her husband than the king, but the fact that Harwyn Plumm was entirely unphased seemed to cause Robert further distress. Like he knew, by the knights inaction, that there was something more to the crest, something meant not for the knight but for the king.

Ned, sitting at the King’s side, simply could not conceive of such a thing. “You think the Plumm’s knew this was being planned? Surely not. The cloak is a symbol of his protection. What man would willingly have his honor questioned for a few pieces of gold?”

It was true that many had begun to whisper about the cloak, but the harsh words against Harwyn came mostly from Northmen, those with a far different sense of duty to their family. Harwyn’s peers, those knights and lords of the South, whispered as well, but with a far deeper understanding of what such a sign might mean.

“You Starks,” Robert grumbled, “you’ll never understand the South.”

“I don’t understand,” Ned agreed. “And yet you’d have me as your Hand.”

Robert turned to his old friend with a smile meant more for reminiscing than anything. “Yes, I know that well enough, Ned. It’s for that reason I want you as my Hand. I need a man removed of all of this, someone I can trust to remain above the fray.”

“By staying above the fray,” Ned deduced, “you mean someone who can’t be bought by Lannisters.”

“That does help your cause.” Robert and Ned laughed quietly together as though it were old times, and they were alone in the halls of the Eyrie avoiding Jon Arryn’s watchful eyes.

For a moment, Ned could almost forget his friend had changed.

Not in appearance, he didn’t need to forget that. Despite his heavier, darker physique, Robert Baratheon was still strong and harsh as ever. His body had aged more poorly than Ned’s own, but it didn’t detract from his friend at all.

Ned had almost forgotten his friend’s rage. Forgotten the cruel look in Robert’s eyes as he relished in the death of the Targaryen dynasty. Forgotten the stench of drink and sex that seemed to permeate Winterfell from the moment Robert arrived. Forgotten the thunk of his son’s soulmate hitting the floor. Forgotten the plotting and scheming against his enemies like a man bereft of sanity.

Almost.

It was impossible to forget when the living reminder sat two places away from Robert’s other side.

(Y/n) had taken a break from dancing with her husband and perched on the edge of her seat, chin high, shoulders back, high and mighty as only a Lannister could be.

Looking at her family, Ned could see Robert’s longing to cut them down to size, of reminding them that their place was the Rock, not the Throne. He could see Tywin marching into the throne room and demanding more respect than the King; Jaime Lannister prancing about the Red Keep like the arrogant fool who’d killed its previous owner; the Queen spitting on the name of her husband every time his back was turned; Tyrion blathering drunk and still thinking he knew more than all.

Ned knew, not only from (Y/n)’s last name but from his every encounter with the girl, that she was as dangerous as their lord father, proud as the knight, defiant as the queen, and smart as the imp. And yet, Ned could not, would not, envisage anyone cutting down (Y/n). Perhaps it was Ashara in her, or perhaps it was his son, but Ned could not stand to forget or forgive for what Robert had done.

In brief moments such as this, joking over Ned’s ignorance or reminiscing about times before the rebellion, Ned could almost see the valiant young lord who fought by Ned’s side to avenge his family and save his sister.

Now, Robert struck women he once would have protected and groped serving maids for the sheer joy of being unfaithful to his wife.

Ned fumed beneath his skin imagining Lyanna where Cersei now stood, being shamed and defied by a man who swore to love her alone, and Ned broke picturing Ashara, bedecked in her final Lannister red and gold, sitting next to a man who threw her to the floor. Ned’s imagination but Robb’s reality.

Robb looked ready to become the second man in the room to slay a king.

Ned turned his head away from Robert and leaned in so only Robb could hear. “He, and the rest of the party, will soon be gone. Do nothing to incur their wrath in these final hours.”

“I will not,” Robb huffed, “assuming you are done ingratiating the man who attacked one of our own.” Robb turned his harsh gaze on his father. “Or did you forget she wears our name now.”

“Our name, but not our colors.” Ned flitted his gaze over the raucous hall. “None know what she is to us.”

“You know.”

Robb pushed to his feet and moved several seats down to ask Sansa to dance, if for nothing more than an excuse to be away from his father and the King.

This day had been a trial of his will, and thus far it had held. He refused to allow it to be broken by the laughter of old men.

* * *

Unsurprisingly, no one had seen when Tyrion Lannister rose to his feet.

Despite being heir to the Rock, the Imp had not received the same place of honor at the table as had the heir of Winterfell. Tyrion was, instead, sat on his sister’s side of the high table, far at the end, next to a snivelling Mace Tyrell and the irritating Lord Banefort. Both men spoke over the head of the shorter man, and neither seemed to notice or care that their companion had abandoned them. 

Tyrion was perfectly fine with that arrangement. Neither provided the prospect of particularly scintillating conversation. He would have preferred, ideally, to be sat on the husband’s far end of the table beside his brother or in his rightful seat beside his favored sister, but being ignored by two unworthy men was far preferable to being bored talking to them.

Tyrion pushed to his feet only moments after the eldest Stark boy had abandoned his chair. He’d been told by his father to wait till the heir of Winterfell had full view, and while his timing was certainly more obvious than if he had waited a few moments, Tyrion simply didn’t think he could stand the room for another minute. This was his excuse to leave, and he hoped to seize the opportunity immediately.

With short, swift paces, Tyrion rounded the high table and dropped down two stone steps in height before he continued along its length towards the center of the room.

Seeing his youngest son approach, Tywin rose to his feet.

No one had seen, heard, or bothered with Tyrion standing, but the entire room stilled and fell quiet for his father.

“Father,” Tyrion fell to one knee, though he rested it on the step above where he stood to avoid losing any more height on the rest of the room. He spoke as loudly as he dared, “I have come before this hall to beg forgiveness.”

“For what, my son?” Tywin spoke what was meant to be a question but came without the tone.

“Forgiveness from the burden of bearing your name and my inability to do so. My Lord Father,” With a deep breath Tyrion recited the words. “May the Crone deem me wise. May the Father deem me just. May the Smith deem me strong. May the Mother deem me merciful. May the Warriror deem me brave. I ask the Maiden to pass my burden onto one of her own, and the Stranger to claim me swiftly if I prove wrong.”

“Tyrion Lannister, you would pass on your inheritance as Lord of Casterly Rock.” Tywin confirmed for his youngest son.

“I would.”

In a booming voice, for all to hear, Tywin announced, “Tyrion of House Lannister, born successor to the Lord of Casterly Rock, I pass you on as heir and hand the title my daughter, Lady (Y/N) Lannister. May she prove fit to bear the name.”

She would. Robb knew that much.

And as the celebrations resumed their levity, Robert Baratheon began to laugh.

Robb knew why. Tywin had seemingly given his House away to the Plumm’s.

Robert jeered his rival with a confidence the larger man would never have had on a sober morning, and Tywin met the rebukes with a cool smirk. Leaning over several seats, Tywin whispered to the King a single sentence that made the Baratheon’s face fall in an instance.

A sentence Robb, again, already knew. “My daughter is cloaked under her own protection and bares her own name; her children will be Lannister to their core.”

Lannister heirs. Something Robb, much as he wanted (Y/n), could never give.

* * *

“The bedding!”

Robert’s voice roared and echoed across the stones.

Only Ned or the King could call for the end of the feast, and Robert seemed rather eager to do so quickly after Tyrion’s show and Tywin’s explanation.

The King should have married Tywin’s daughter to a Stark but was thwarted by the girl’s rejection. The King should have forced the betrothal but was thwarted by Tywin’s arrival. The King should have undone Harwyn Plumm but was thwarted by the sudden wedding.

Tywin should have cloaked his daughter in purple and yellow but instead managed to slight the Plumms and his guests by draping her in red. Tywin should have been robbed of his heir after Tyrion’s deferment but instead passed it to his daughter. Tywin should have lost his name to the Plumms but instead preserved his reign for years to come.

Robert was no longer in the mood for anything, even drinking. The greatest whore in King’s Landing could not satisfy the King’s mind, and the whore of Winterfell were far from the greatest in King’s Landing.

Robert wanted to watch the unruly Northmen shove the girl out of his sight so they might degrade her as she walked naked through the frigid halls of Winterfell. It was ceremony, a ceremony the King greatly enjoyed, and with his daughter left naked, it was one Tywin Lannister could not dare to stop.

The men, on any other occasion, would have rushed the bride. Drunkeningly tearing away her dignity for the whole kingdom to see without any care for whether they were still in the company of the feasting hall. Then, most women resisted or cowered at their fate.

“The bedding!”

Harwyn, still dancing with an older southern lady, was the first to be ushered away by the giggling maidens in his midst. He smiled, amused by the prospect, and put up little resistance as the women dragged him along towards the entrance hall. Shrill laughing and squeals of amusement following in their wake.

(Y/n) rose without emotion or hesitation as Robert called for it to begin.

The two dozen or so men, unknighted Northern soldiers mostly, assembled in the entryway. They laughed and shoved each other at the edge of the hall, waiting for the seemingly compliant woman to join their midst.

(Y/n) had to join them.

Usually the men would carry the bride. Usually, they would strip her naked in their arms, touch and feel her body as they pleased, and say whatever horrific obscenity came to their mind to humiliate the bride before they dropped her, crying usually, in bed with her husband as they laughed at the man for what they had seen of her or done to her before her husband could.

Tradition stated she must accompany them to her room, and that she should not resist their ‘preparations’ for her night, an elegant description for an inelegant deed.

(Y/n) walked straight through the group for the entrance hall, and the men rushed after her quick unfaltering pace.

“Leaving so soon?” One man called as the stumbling group tried to catch up with her.

“I knew she was just another Southern whore.”

Another voice joined in over the chorus of laughter. “Come back here; we want to see if your cunt is really made of gold!”

(Y/n) said nothing. She didn’t want this. She wanted to break into a run for her rooms. She wanted to call her guards and have Jaime or the Mountain cut them down. She wanted turn and slap the ones who spoke and show them to their proper place, far beneath her feet.

She couldn’t though. She wouldn’t. They were under her skin, but she wouldn’t allow them the pleasure of knowing it.

(Y/n) weaved her way through the halls at an unrelenting pace, always one step short of bolting for her door. If they caught her, it would not be in the entry halls, traversed by many where all could see her shame. If they caught her, it wouldn’t be for her lack of trying.

As she turned the corner towards the stairwell, one soldier, less drunk than his comrades presumably, kept better on his feet and matched (Y/n)’s pace as the raucous group came down the empty hall.

“Not so fast, my lady,” his voice growled. With thick, pudgy fingers, he caught the hem of her cloak and jerked.

(Y/n) was wrenched back by her neck into the crowd of pawing hands who all cheered their friend’s achievement.

With a crack of the clasp, her beautiful cloak fluttered to the floor beneath their feet as muddy boots trod over it in the men’s haste to get a better grip on the Lady of the Rock.

The men were intended to lift her on their shoulders and strip her as they traveled, but their walk after her had made them impatient and indulgent in their reward.

(Y/n) snapped her eyes tightly shut and balled her hands at her hands. Her teeth bit back the tip of her tongue as one voice shouted.

“Come on then! Show the rest of us! Is it gold?”

Hands trailed over (Y/n)’s curves, slipping over and under the thin material of her dress. They fought for what they deemed the best spaces and elbowed each other to make room for a better grip on her flesh.

A hand fisted in the folds at the front of her dress, and (Y/n) felt herself being dragged forward, pressed tight against the offending man’s chest. He and the nearest man behind her rubbed themselves against her, pressing and squeezing into her body with groans of pleasure.

“Savor it. We all need to have a turn!” One man snarked, ripping away the man at her front to try to replace him.

Bodies closed in around her; hands touched her chest and thighs in more places and ways than she could count.

(Y/n) was sure every man had their piece, but the voices made it seem some did not or were at least unsatisfied with the contact. They shouted at each other to make room. They shouted grotesque comments to her. They shouted what they would do when they had her.

She tried. She really, truly tried to keep herself hidden. She didn’t open her eyes or unclench her hands. She said nothing to the men and tried, in turn, to ignore what was said to her.

But when a pair of them lifted her arms above her head to get better access to her breasts, a lone tear finally broke and slid down her cheek.

“Leave us.” A voice, as cold and dark as the night outside the walls, broke the daze which had consumed the men.

A few maintained their rhythms, touching, groping and rubbing against the disturbed woman in their midst, but most hands, most bodies jerked away from her skin as if the voice cast some magic which burned their touch.

“My lord, we simply…” It was the same voice that told the others to savor it.

“I said leave us.” Darker, colder than the night this time.

(Y/n) dared not look as she heard the men retreating behind her; some willingly, others too drunk to know better had to be dragged away by their friends.

It took what (Y/n) thought must have been at least five minutes before the hall was completely quiet of the mobs crude noises and harsh words.

“They should be ashamed.” The words were spat with as much disgust as (Y/n) had ever heard.

“In the morning, they will say the same of you.” (Y/n) replied quietly, staying rooted to her spot in the middle of the hall.

Footsteps paced cautiously up behind her. They approached with all the hesitation and care the previous men had lacked. They came at her slowly, each step testing if it was one step too far before the next was made.

(Y/n) did not bother to open her eyes. She could hear quite clearly the path the feet took around in front of her, and when they finally settled, she felt the body heat pulsing out at her chest, drawing her in with its comforting warmth.

“I should have come sooner.” A gentle hand touched her cheek, wiping alone the lone tear clinging to her skin.

“I wish you had,” (Y/n) confessed in a voice meant for only their ears to hear.

A sigh blew across her face, “I’m not expected to join the bedding, or I would have sent them away at once. Robert tried to keep me in the hall; he insisted you were no longer my concern.”

(Y/n) let her eyelids flutter open to meet the dazzling blue eyes meer inches from her own. “In a way, I suppose he’s right.”

A small, sad smile tugged the corner of Robb’s lips. “I don’t suppose you would have a Septon set aside your marriage, turn your back on your father and your husband, give up becoming the most powerful woman in Westeros, force Tyrion to become heir to the Rock, leave your gold and all your other lavish Southern possessions and join me in the cold, barren North for the boring life of an incredibly traditional lady.”

(Y/n) laughed and let her face fall into Robb’s chest, dragging him into her with her arms around his waist.

Robb returned the gesture with a tight grip around her shoulders, holding her into him for what he worried might be the last time.

“I don’t suppose,” she teased in return, “if I set aside my marriage, you would be willing to forsake your inheritance, remove your sigil, leave your family, and follow me to Casterly Rock where you and your children will be known as Lannisters and never be allowed to bear the name Stark?”

They let the sad joke that was their lives hang in the air between them, and for a moment, though admittedly just a moment, Robb considered saying yes, he would.

“What do the old gods say happen to soulmates who cannot have each other this life?” (Y/n) suddenly asked, burrowing herself deeper into Robb’s embrace.

“Not much,” Robb confessed. “We have no afterlife. I like to believe we simply do not know of it, or that there is some kind of peace with those we love.”

(Y/n) turned her head to the side, pressing her cheek to Robb, so she could speak more clearly. “The new gods have seven heavens and seven hells. I like to think the pain of living in this world without your soulmate is enough suffering to warrant a place in at least the lowest heaven, or the highest hell, at the side of the soulmate we missed.”

Robb touched his lips to the top of her hair. He couldn’t bare to kiss (Y/n)’s skin. He worried the action might addict him to it. “Whatever fate befalls us,” Robb whispered into her quietly, “I promise you we will have our day.”

“We will have our day.” (Y/n) echoed Robb’s words with a far deeper emotion than she echoed Harwyn’s pledge of love earlier that day.

Robb unhappily pulled himself away and walked back several feet down the hall, stooping to salvage (Y/n)’s marriage cloak from the stones. “It’s a cold night. You should not be traveling through the halls without this.” Brushing the dirt and mud of the men from the cloth, Robb presented it to her.

(Y/n) turned her back to him, and Robb laid the cloak softly over her shoulders, wrapping her in warmth. She hadn’t realized it was so cold surrounded by the men, and when they’d left Robb had more than filled the void of heat. In fact, Robb was right, without the fires or bodies filling the feast, the air in the empty halls was heavy with the chill.

“Thank you,” She held the cloak tightly around herself.

“You’re welcome, my Lady.” Robb chuckled, “Now,” He didn’t want to break apart their moment, but he would rather end it himself, his way, than have it rudely interrupted by a passerby or search party. “I believe my fellow soldiers diverted tradition.”

“In what way?” (Y/n) looked back over her shoulder just in time.

Robb bent down, and with one arm on the small of her back and one behind her knees, swept his mate off her feet. “They were meant, my lady, to carry you.”

(Y/n) laughed, a loud, open sound not at all curved by her strong sense of propriety. It bounced off the stone and echoed down the halls with a joyous noise not at all befitting the moment, but certainly the first glint of amusement or happiness she or Robb had seen since their last fireside talk seemingly a lifetime ago.

Robb’s smile matched her own as he held her close for the journey up the stairs, and she rested her head on his shoulder with a natural comfort.

Despite their situation, they talked with ease.

(Y/n) groaned over how tediously long her maid had spent doing her hair in three different styles before her sister finally settled on the one that best framed her face. Robb lamented the snowy evening keeping the party crowded indoors. (Y/n) countered that he should join her at the Rock where space was never an issue, and Robb reminded her that the North was a far larger kingdom than the Westerlands.

(Y/n), having never been to the North before, asked its future lord just how large his domain would be. Robb recounted a tale where he, Theon, and Jon rode to House Manderly and ended up accompanying a convoy of supplies from Ramsgate  to the Stony Shore, not even the full width of the North and still a ride achievable in no less than three weeks, though usually a month. (Y/n) asked if it was made longer by winter weather, to which Robb conceded that sometimes was the case, though not in the story he told. He added that even at the height of summer, a ride from Last Hearth to Greywater took a month and a week.

(Y/n) gushed over having so much room to breath and groaned how a ride from Casterly Rock to Lannisport could sometimes take two days, not for distance but for the sheer number of carts on the roads. Robb wondered allowed how long the distance was and how large the Westerlands were, as even studying countless maps never gave anyone a true idea of space. (Y/n) told him a ride from Banefort to Crakehall usually took two weeks, but time could be cut if a traveler was willing to avoid roads through the Rock, not that many were for fear of thieves.

Robb asked the width of her lands, and she agreed that, without burgeoning trade, Silver Hall to Lannisport would be easily traversed in a week, no more. Though she liked to mention the mountains made it a far rougher ride than the flat ice plains of the North.

And then they were at her door. And Robb was setting her back on her feet.

“My lady,” Robb bowed before (Y/n), “I believe this is where I leave you.”

They stood together silently for a moment. Robb, waiting for her facade of passive indifference to return as she sent him away; (Y/n), waiting for she knew not what.

She didn’t want it to end this way. Chatting mildly about kingdoms and weather. It had been so lovely as it happened, but now knowing that was all there would be, it felt like time thoroughly wasted.

“Robb Stark,” (Y/n) curtsied in return to him, “I dare say you will never truly leave me.”

She was right, and they both knew it was so.

Robb turned away, not to leave her, for she was right that he never would, but to walk away. (Y/n) caught his hand. “Wait.”

“Yes, my lady,” Robb paused but couldn’t bring himself to look back at her.

“I,” (Y/n), for once in her life, had nothing to say. “I don’t believe this is how I’m intended to be delivered to my husband,” She said the first thing that came to her mind.

Robb shifted his palm so her hand slipped into his, and he laced her fingers between his own. “I won’t be like those men who defiled you.”

(Y/n) pressed her chest into Robb’s back, squeezing his fingers between her own for encouragement. “I believe, to defile me, would require I not be a willing participant in the act.”

What restraint Robb held, seemed to gradually melt away as (Y/n)’s free hand caressed over his shoulder and ran down his spine. (Y/n)’s breath fanned faintly over the back of Robb’s neck as she whispered, “Robb, he is nothing to me; I don’t want a stranger to be the first to see me.”

Robb whipped around, pulling himself free from (Y/n) as he faced her. “This is what you want?” His voice was stern, controlled. He had to be. To give her this, he had to be on guard to going too far. Not on guard to going beyond what she allowed, he needn’t worry about that. If she felt even half of what he did, Robb could claim her for his own right now against the door of her husband’s bedchambers. He worried more about going beyond his place, their places.

Her husband was on the other side of the door. Their fathers were downstairs on either side of the King. They had duties and responsibilities that even being soulmates would not allow them, namely her, to forsake, and he feared how much beyond those duties she would willingly give and he would gladly take.

“I want it to be you in there,” She motioned to the thick wooden door in the wall right beside them. “Barring that, I want you here, or at least I want what you’re allowed to have.”

Robb closed the step he had put between them, looking on her for the first time with completely unbridled emotion. He didn’t love her yet, nor did she love him. But by the old gods and the new, Robb knew he would love her one day. It was simply a matter of where and when, and looking on her in her wedding dress, it felt like the answer to both of those questions was the same. Close. Soon.

They moved together, lazily, drawing out the moment for all it was worth.

(Y/n) lifted her arms and rested them across the top of her head, giving Robb an obstructed view.

The pure white dress was stained with dirt and grime from the men she was longing for Robb to make her forget, but her survival, her defiance, only made her all the more beautiful. Even surrounded by a mob, she would not break or cave.  

Robb’s hands rested at her waist. They were calloused over years of sword fighting and hunting, but for her, and her alone, they moved as delicately as an artist. Tracing up her shape with languid movements that sent a welcome shiver down her back.

He reached the underside of her shoulders and followed up her forearms. A subtle pressure of his fingers bent back her elbows and brought her arms straight above her head. Crossed at the wrist, he made no move to hold them in place, leaving it to her to stay willingly at his mercy.

His attention dropped to the metal encircling her neck. She had tucked the edges of her cloak, where the clasp had been broken, under the metal to keep it from slipping from her shoulders. The memory of her husband tossing it over her back long replaced by Robb folding her caringly in its depths.

Robb took the warmth from her, a flick of his wrist pulling the cloak free and pooling the lioness at their feet.

She shook again, though not from the cold.

“You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” Robb sighed a desperate noise, pained by the realization that this moment would be the best he ever lived.

(Y/n) smiled up at him equally pained. “I would say the same of you, but let this moment be only us, something to cherish in our dying breaths.”

Standing close, Robb could see small hooks in the metal attached it to loops in the top of (Y/n)’s dress, and he began to free them as he spoke, “I do believe that every moment with you will be one I cherish in my dying breaths.”

(Y/n)’s hands dropped to hold her hair out of the way as Robb lifted the glorified necklace over her head. “Robb, please,” she begged, “try not to love me. I believe it will prove near impossible for me not to love you, but it is better for us both that, save these often visited memories, we fade away.”

Robb moved closer as his hands slid behind her back. His chest pushed into (Y/n)’s, forcing the hands above her head to fall around his neck.

“I don’t want to fade away.” Robb confessed.

Silk ties corseting her dress were hidden by a panel of silk that Robb deftly slipped beneath. Clutching the ends of the string, Robb pulled the knot loose and with it the last barrier from his mate. The fabric of her dress went slack around her body, held up only by the pressure of Robb tight against her. Along the seam of her back, the dress fell open entirely, exposing a huge expanse of her longing form to Robb’s yearning gaze.

His fingers glided down beneath the soft silk and rested flat against her backside, holding her to him, not that she ever wanted to leave.

“I want every other man to fade away. I want to wipe them from your memory, remove them from this place. I want to ruin you for your husband before he ever gets to claim you.”

With a squeeze, Robb elicited a groan from his mate, and while Harwyn Plumm was the last person he should be thinking of, Robb prayed that inside his room the knight had heard the noise.

“We have a duty,” Robb conceded, delicately drawing the tips of his fingers over every inch of (Y/n) exposed to his touch. He trailed up and down the length of her spine, feeling every bone of her back and tracing the shape of each with care as (Y/n) quaked from the sensation.

“And I promise you.” His palms, rough from work felt the breadth of her shoulders with a relieving pressure that brought (Y/n)’s head rolling back in his grasp.

Robb worked his fingers up into her hair as her head lulled to the side, gently massaging over her scalp, peppered with a tug here and there to draw a pleased sigh from her lips. “I won’t forsake that.”

(Y/n) could barely register Robb’s words. She knew what he was saying, but she was sure that,  until his fingers ceased toying with pulling down the neckline of her dress, she wouldn’t actually know what they meant.

“But make no mistake. I will not forget you, and you will not forget me.”

Perhaps, it was only that Robb was so clearly more handsome than her husband. Perhaps, she was only consumed by a moment’s gratitude to Robb for freeing her from the men who grabbed her. Perhaps, Robb knew his way around a woman with more skill than she initially believed. Perhaps, for once in her life, (Y/n) was enjoying indulging in something rebellious. Perhaps, this was all only a trick of the gods.

Or perhaps, it was the affectionate bond they formed in their early days by the light of the fire. Perhaps, it was how easily they enjoyed talking to one another. Perhaps, it was the tender care with which he always treated her. Perhaps, she was drawn to a man so visibly consumed with her. Perhaps, she was, truly, made for him.

Whatever the cause, (Y/n) had no words for what she felt as Robb took a step away from her and let her dress crumble to the floor. No words she could speak, anyway.

He looked at her as if she was the only woman in the world, and she looked on him wishing he was the only man.

With her naked before him, Robb no longer raised a hand. His arms stayed firmly at his sides. His eyes moved enough for the rest of him.

She felt his gaze caressing every inch of her skin, touching her, holding her everywhere he wanted to but didn’t dare.

(Y/n) turned in her spot, moving as slowly as she was willing to risk. If she never got to see him, and he could only see her once, then he would see all she had to offer him.  

They had traveled, till now, under the guise of the bedding, and much as she wished, their mask provided no excuse for her to see him in the state he saw her now. She lived, vicariously, through her mate, consuming his expressions and his eyes as those she would return if their positions were reversed.

(Y/n) reached out a hand to take Robb’s own, and the two stayed joined for a long moment, enjoying what they could of each other for the last time.

“I believe,” Robb’s voice was gruff, deeper with desire than it had ever been before. “It is custom to take you to your bed.”

(Y/n) bit back a smile. “I believe you are right.”

Robb was careful with what he touched as he lifted (Y/n), naked as her birth, against his chest.

(Y/n) waited patiently in his arms as Robb closed his eyes to memorize this moment. He felt every curve and plane of her body pressing against him from her breasts to her thighs. He inhaled her scent, unadulterated by oil or perfume. He listened to the sound of her heartbeat, hammering so hard in her chest that he could count the thuds in time with his own.

Robb opened his eyes and stepped to the door.

(Y/n), taking cue, reached down and opened it for her mate.

“You’re finally here. I was worried something had…”

Harwyn was tucked into their marriage bed, bare as his wife and shocked speechless by her presence.

Robb marched with sure steps around to the empty side of the bed, laying (Y/n) down atop the soft furs. Lowering his head, Robb took one last liberty for himself, kissing the flat bone between (Y/n)’s naked breasts before he rose.

“I hope your night brings all the pleasure you deserve,” Robb brushed a hair from (Y/n)’s eyes as he smiled painfully down at her.

It was, Robb thought as he made for the door, the last time he would ever touch her, the last words he would ever say to her.

His knuckles went white to restrain himself as he turned back to see Harwyn sat up, leaning protectively over his wife as he glared after Robb. Jealous of Robb, as if there was anything for Harwyn to be jealous of. The most beautiful woman in the world was lying at his side, and all Robb had of her were fleeting memories and a family name on his arm.

Robb was the one, rightly, jealous of Harwyn Plumm, a man so unworthy of the prize he’d claimed.

Perhaps, Robb hoped fleetingly, he could give the man’s jealousy cause.

Robb looked over Harwyn’s heavy set shoulders to see (Y/n) had moved up onto her knees to watch him leave. “If he doesn’t satisfy your pleasures, my lady,” Robb turned his eyes on Harwyn with a cruel smirk, “you know where to find me.”

* * *

That night, upset by the actions of her husband, the queen left the festivities early, long before the bedding.

Her twin accompanied her, attempting to conceal the very real emotion projecting on the queen’s usually passive face.

That night, upset that himself, his youngest sister, and younger brother were not allowed into the feast, a young Stark took to climbing the towers around the keep to get a peak in the high windows.

He was alone, climbing slick, icy stones facing strong winds. It was no wonder to any but his family why the boy fell. It was no wonder to any, including his family, that the howls of his wolf went unnoticed in the clatter of celebration.

The next morning as he prepared for his ride to the Wall, a bastard found the boy’s body, blue with cold.

* * *

“Tyrek!” 

The squire rushed into Tywin’s quarters.

Kevan, Tywin, and (Y/n) sat huddled around his desk, preparing their route to leave Winterfell. 

The regrettable fall of Bran had already delayed the party’s departure by a week and was set to delay the King by at least one more. 

Ned Stark, despairing of what happened to his son, couldn’t bare the sight of his own home and couldn’t bare the thought of letting his daughters out of his sight, let alone allowing them to travel to King’s Landing. 

The King, ingratiating himself to the Stark who now agreed to be his hand, ordered a week of mourning, no travel, no planning, no celebrating. 

Robert only lifted the ban for fear that, should the entirety of the court remain any longer, Winterfell would again be facing a shortfall of food. This time, without a flush of Tyrell travelers to provide relief.

A group of lesser courtiers, those deemed nonessential to the King, were to leave in two days time, and Tywin hoped he and his daughter would be among them, along with all but one of his men.

“Tyrek, bar the door.” 

The young squire did as instructed and closed the door, latching it in place. Clanging of armor just beyond the wood, assured the Mountain was stationed outside. They would not be overheard or interrupted.

“I have a task for you which will require you do not return with us to Casterly Rock.” Tywin addressed his nephew.

(Y/n) rose to her feet and motioned for Tyrek to take her place. For once, (Y/n) found she didn’t know what her father had called Tyrek in to discuss. It was not often that she was left out of his plans, and it usually only occurred for the lack of convenience brought by her distance.

On this occasion, the reasoning was entirely different, and one she wished to be on her feet and braced to hear.

Tyrek took the empty chair between Kevan and Tywin, nervously looking between his uncles. “Anything you ask, my lord.”

Tywin withdrew from his desk a piece of paper. “By order of the King, you are to join Lancel as his squire.”

Tyrek took the paper and unfolded it, reading the words with his own eyes. “By what reason, may I ask?”

“By reason that I have asked it.” Tywin dismissed the question promptly. 

“What would you have me do?” 

Tywin lifted a bag from beneath his desk and and dumped its contents. 

A small vial fell out of the leather and rolled across the table, stopping only where it hit Tyrek’s outstretched hand. “What is this?” Tyrek lifted the vial and examined the thick brown liquid as it oozed slowly across the surface of its container. 

“Thickened manticore venom.”

“Father!” (Y/n)’s tone wasn’t rebuking, but it was certainly shocked. Poison was not her father’s weapon, nor a common item in the Westerlands. 

Tywin rose from his chair, assuming his full height as he rounded the table to face his daughter with hard, cold eyes. “You disapprove?”

She didn’t, of course. She was surprised, of course; caught off guard, but not at all against the thought. “I’m told,” she hedged, “it’s a slow and painful death.”

“Precisely as he deserves.” Tywin turned to his nephew who stared up on the pair with wide eyed fascination. “Tyrek, I have a job for you. Should you succeed, you will be rewarded far beyond your dreams.”

“What would you have me do?” Tyrek clutched the poison in his fist.

“I would have you murder the King.”


	5. Chapter 5

Revenge paid best when done in the service of Lannisters, and it paid even better when wrought against the King.

Tyrek, the firstborn son of Tywin’s deceased younger brother Tygett, was actually quite closely related to the central family of House Lannister, not that anyone remembered that. The Great Lion was in fact his uncle; and the Pride of the Rock, as (Y/n) had long been called, was to call Tyrek her first cousin. 

With his father a third-born son and himself proving lacking in mental abilities and physical prowess, many passed over Tyrek and regarded him as insignificant. To be sure, his family set a near impossible measure to live up to. Standing out amongst the Lannisters was only achievable for those truly great and notorious of history. 

His uncles, Tywin and Kevan, were considered masters of war and strategy and rule. His cousins were without equal: Cersei, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms; Jaime, the greatest swordsman to ever live; (Y/n), Lady of the Rock; and Lancel, squire to the King. 

There were others, to be fair, who fell short. Cleos Frey, eldest son of his aunt Gemma, was only noteworthy in how utterly unexceptional he became, and his baby brother Walder was possibly the ugliest thing to toddle the halls of Casterly Rock. Willem, Kevan’s son, may have only been a child, but he showed none of the promise and skill his twin brother. Not wanting to suffer further from association, Tyrek avoided the three at all cost. 

Even in his mediocrity, Tyrek could say he kept good, well-born company, but it wasn’t the matter that he was passed over that bothered him. It was that, as his father’s only child, he felt as though he’d failed him. 

Tywin had three perfect children and a fourth who, even as he disappointed his father, fascinated countless throughout the Seven Kingdoms. Kevan’s brood were an imperfect bunch. Lancel was strong but gullible; Willem was an unpromising one; and Janei, while kind and beautiful, was still only a babe. But where the others failed, Kevan could always look on Martyn for a dazzling performance. 

Genna similarly looked to her middle sons. Her eldest and youngest, Cleos and Walder, were Freys to their core; ugly, bruttish, and dim. They slunk around the shadows of the Rock, scared to even speak to anyone with blonde hair, including their brothers. Lyonel and Tion were Genna’s pride and joy. They looked, acted, and sounded as every Lannister should. They were by no means to par with Jaime or Cersei or (Y/n), but both showed skill and promise enough to rectify the disappoints that were their siblings.

But Tygett, dead though he may be, only had Tyrek. 

Tyrek didn’t know or remember his father, and none in the keep spoke of the man. He knew Tywin did not like him, and for that Tyrek kept his questions to a minimum. He wanted to know though; he wanted to give his long gone father a reason to praise him. And knowing that even if he earned it, he would never hear his father cheer, he sought at least Tywin and Kevan’s, for they were the closest things he had.

Tyrek felt nothing when his hand tipped and poured the contents of the small vial into the King’s wine before a hunt. He felt nothing when healers and the maester came rushing through the Red Keep demanding people make way for the King. He felt nothing when Cersei cackled at the news her husband had fallen ill. He felt nothing when the first scream of pain echoed through the walls of the tower, and he felt nothing when they finally, three days later, heard the last. He felt nothing when Jaime came to tell the Lannisters that the King was dead. 

And, waiting at the gates of King’s Landing for Robert’s funeral procession to begin, he wasn’t sure he felt anything now. 

“You did well, Tyrek,” (Y/n) whispered, resting on his shoulder what would appear to any outsider to be a comforting hand. 

Tyrek looked up at (Y/n), not physically but emotionally. His hopeful eyes screamed for guidance. “You’re pleased? Lord Tywin will be pleased?”

“Yes,” (Y/n) rubbed his shoulder before letting her hand drop to her side. “We owe you a debt, and I promise it will be paid in full.” 

Tyrek smiled as (Y/n) walked away.

Maybe he was a worthy Lannister, because the prospect of being paid by some means filled him with more happiness than the murder had guilt.

(Y/n) left her cousin alone in the streets, trekking back up to the Red Keep with her head hung in a sign of mourning. 

The funeral had brought to mind something (Y/n) had long wondered. 

Robert Baratheon was dead, and in all the crowds it seemed only Tommen shed a tear. Cersei celebrated behind closed doors; Joffrey relished his new found power; Myrcella had always been fearful of her father for the way he treated Cersei; Renly was finally out of his brother’s shadow; and Stannis hadn’t even bothered to come to King’s Landing.

(Y/n) wondered, when she was gone, who would mourn her. Would Tyrion cry for her or rejoice at finally being treated as an heir? Would Jaime even notice her absence when his vision was so clouded with his twin? Would Tywin care that his daughter passed, or would he only care that he’d lost his right hand?

She knew better than to ask after Cersei. Loyal perhaps, but the sisters had no love lost. 

Robb. 

Robb would cry for her, would notice her absence, would care that she had passed. She had that over the King; she had Robb. 

Even Ned Stark, loyal, faithful Ned Stark, Robert’s oldest and only friend, didn’t mourn the man. He stayed locked in his tower, supposedly preparing the coronation of the new King.

Of course, (Y/n) knew better than to believe that. Ned Stark was, after all, a terrible liar.

“Enter,” a voice called from inside the study.

(Y/n) walked past the Northern guard opening the door with a nod and a smile. 

Ned sat at a wide oak desk in the bay of an otherwise empty room. The Hand of the King had an official study for business, a grand bedecked thing nearer the quarters of the King. 

This, however, was a personal one. Two studies were not a luxury any Northman, even the Warden of the North, was used to. It seemed Ned did not know how to fill the space and had opted instead to not even try.

(Y/n) motioned for the guard to shut the door as she analyzed the contents, or lack thereof, in the room. “It is rather different than my father kept it.”

Ned leapt from his desk, hand reaching for the sword balanced against his chair back. He had been expecting his meal at this time, but the voice that spoke had caught him entirely unaware in a city where even the slightest lapse in attention meant death.

“Forgive my interruption,” (Y/n) halfheartedly placated. 

Ned took a moment, assessing there was no physical threat in the room, only a moment though as the lack of furniture made it clear (Y/n) was the only other occupant of the room. He replied slowly, cautiously removing his hand from the hilt of his blade. “I don’t believe you were born long enough ago to remember your father’s time as Hand.”

(Y/n) ambled around the perimeter of the room, trailing a hand over the walls. “I was not, but as you recall my father might as well have been king for most of Aerys’ reign. Painters loved to depict my father. There are countless portraits of him stored in the vaults of the Rock. A couple of him on the Iron Throne, a few in front of the Keep, plenty in the library or the Hand’s study, but my favorite portrait of him was in this room.”

“There were Lannister banners on the walls then.” She reached the desk and flattened a palm against the wood. “But he put his desk here as well. The light from the window, I presume.”

“It is why I chose the spot.” Ned stepped back towards the door, putting a few paces of distance between himself and (Y/n) Lannister.

Lannister. She was, despite her wedding, still a Lannister. Ned wished it weren’t so, or at least he wished to forget it were. 

Catelyn had given him his children who were his absolute joy. She stood by him and helped him with every decision he made. She cared for his people and his home. She vowed herself, gave herself, to him knowing she was not his mate. Ned loved his wife. He would not trade her for anything in the Seven Kingdoms, but Ashara was no longer in the Seven Kingdoms. 

Her daughter caused Ned great confusion and pain. A beauty that rivaled her mother, a mind which rivaled her father. He looked on her and saw his lost love; he listened to her speak and heard his mortal enemy.

She spoke from her core, and her core was Lannister. No matter the face which hid it. 

Without even a cursory glance in his direction, (Y/n) slipped into the chair Ned had vacated. The post weighed heavily on Ned’s mind at all hours of the day and night, but the seat seemed to mold around (Y/n) Lannister as if it were her own. As though the space had always been hers to occupy. As though the room was hers and he was the one merely a guest. 

“Lord Stark,” She crossed her arms over her chest with a weary smile, the sort of smile that would be comforting in any city but King’s Landing. “I’ve come to speak to you today about a whisper I heard.” 

Ned went instantly on guard. “I don’t employ spies. If you want to speak of rumors, I would be happy to escort you to Lord Varys’.” 

“I share your aversion to those who pay others to listen in on their fellow man, Lord Stark,” (Y/n) dismissed handily, “I assure you; what I’ve heard was not bought by myself or any other. It was offered and taken freely. I don’t deal in spies, nor do I deal in rumors.” (Y/n) picked at her fingernails as though the matter were as casual as her morning meal. “Rumors are usually lies, and no one is fool enough to lie to me. Whispers are another matter. Whispers are the truths no one wishes to speak.”

“And what whispers have you heard that concern me?” Ned pried warily.

“Whispers of visits to the less desirable end of King’s Landing, whispers of trips to one of Lord Baelish’s establishments, whispers of inquiries at a number of bastard’s homes in Flea Bottom.” 

Ned’s blood ran cold, and (Y/n) seemed to sense it even though his face remained as emotionless as ever. 

(Y/n) lifted her eyes to Lord Stark but did not divert any meaningful attention to him. “You see, the rumors say you’re looking for another of your bastards, or visiting Jon Snow’s mother, or looking to take a new mistress. I have no time for such slander.” 

“Then what do you have time for, Lady Lannister?” 

(Y/n) turned her head to Ned’s desk top, directing his eyes to the large book weighing down his papers: The History of House Baratheon. “I have time for a warning, Lord Stark.”

“A warning?” 

(Y/n) wasn’t a fool. She knew that by giving him a warning Ned Stark would connect her, or more likely her family, to his inquiries. That is, if he hadn’t already. Starks had a way of blaming Lannisters for every crime committed in the Seven Kingdoms and most of the crimes committed outside of them. That they were right to place the blame there was irrelevant. That they couldn’t fathom Lannister’s may have a purpose for such perceived injustices was of far greater concern to (Y/n) now.  

“Stop.”

Ned paused. “That is all?” He was rather expecting more than one word. 

“Stop this?” (Y/n) shrugged nonchalantly. “I admit. I don’t know how else to say it.” 

“You want me to stop prying into the death of my ally and mentor, Jon Arryn, and you expect me to do so without cause, simply because you asked?” 

“Ah!” (Y/n) exclaimed. “This is our misunderstanding.” (Y/n) leaned forward, elbows to her knees and looked up at Ned. Her face, for a moment, lost any and all resemblance it held with Ashara. It was as though Tywin Lannister had entered the room. His essence pooled in her eyes and and seeped through her skin as if by some magic the old man had possessed her though only for an instant. “I am not asking.”

Ned braced. His hand itched for his sword, not that he would ever dare use it on this woman of all people, for any number of reasons. He sought merely the comfort of having his weapon; he felt as though he were in a battle entirely unarmed. 

“Your sister had the Hand of the King murdered in cold blood. You don’t deny this, and you expect me to look the other way.” Ned accused.

(Y/n) leaned back in her chair exasperated. “I deny it entirely!” 

How daft was this man. To call her family out so blatantly without all the facts before him. He was no master of the game; she knew that. She hadn’t expected him to be on par with Baelish or Varys, but it seemed he wasn’t even on par with the lessers, such as her siblings or Pycelle. Even Tommen knew better than to confront anyone in King’s Landing, especially her, in such a way.

“You deny your family is capable of such treachery? I find that difficult to believe.”

“I denied no such thing. Your family and mine are different out of the necessity of our survival. Your family is capable of a great many things mine is not, as the reverse is also true.” (Y/n) bit back. “I did not deny my family was capable of such a thing. I denied, specifically, that my sister, your Queen whom you should refer to her with more respect, murdered Jon Arryn.”

Ned contemplated, for a moment, the poor woman before him. A woman who genuinely believed her words, who believed death a necessity for survival. “If not your family, then who? He was my oldest friend. I will not let this pass.”

“There was a time you would have called King Robert your oldest friend, yet you do not seek justice for him now.” (Y/n) pointed out, much to Ned’s discomfort. “You know your king to have been poisoned, and you let every suspect of the crime walk free from this city. Why?”

“Robert,” Ned hesistated. He looked out the opening above his desk, for no other reason than to avoid (Y/n)’s knowing gaze. “I know the reason for his death; we both do. I imagine I also know who did the deed and how it was done. Nothing there need be questioned, and I find the reason to be one which my heart simply cannot see fit to judge. Robert was not the man I once knew.” 

“And you know Jon Arryn to be the same man how?” (Y/n) asked. “You say he was your oldest friend, a title you remove from Robert in recent days. A title you would not have dreamed remove from Robert before you saw what he’d become. How then, having not seen Jon Arryn for just as long as the late King, can you lay the honor at his feet?” 

Ned marched forward to Jon Arryn’s defense, grabbing up the straining spine of the book and forcing its pages into (Y/n)’s face. “Because I know why he was killed, and no man deserves to die for doing his duty to his people. Your sister should not go unpunished for his death.”

“Again,” (Y/n) sighed, “my sister did not kill Jon Arryn.”

“And how do you know?” Ned turned the questioning on her.

“Because that deed I did myself.”

For that, Ned had no response. 

The tone of the conversation took a turn. Argument and resistance died in the air. Objection froze on the tongue. 

Ned Stark found he was well and truly struck dumb. 

Ned Stark had fallen at the first hurdle, a lesson (Y/n) had known even as a child: Never ask a question unless you already know its answer. 

With her revelation, it seemed as if (Y/n) did, in fact, own the room.

“I imagine you have already correctly deduced why I felt it need be done. Regardless of your actions, I won’t kill you as I did him, Lord Stark. I promise you that. Though, I cannot and will not promise your safety if you continue with this line of inquiry. You walk a dangerous path down which another has already died, and it is a path you walk very much alone. You have no allies in this city, only the liability of your daughters.”

“If you touch my children,” Ned began.

“I have no intention to draw the siblings of my mate into any frey,” (Y/n) waved off his growl. “Your daughters are no concern of mine, but I cannot say the same of my counterparts. Baelish is seen to be quite regularly in Sansa’s presence, and Varys has eyes on Arya almost constantly. I mention your daughters to remind you that they are here. Because judging by your actions, you seem to have forgotten. Whatever you do,” (Y/n) slammed her hand down on the book Ned had set aside on the table, “will affect them directly. 

“If you see through your quest for vengeance, your life and theirs will be at the mercy of my sister. If you are arrested for the treason you are plotting to commit, it will be my heartless nephew who decides their fate.” (Y/n) rose to her feet, forcing Ned back a step as they stood toe-to-toe. “Lord Stark, if you continue, the best ending that could possibly come from this would be for you to be branded a traitor and thrown in prison. The best ending for your daughters is to be given to my care at the Rock as honored guests unable to see their family ever again. And we both know what the worst outcome would entail.” 

Ned had much to think on that seemed to prevent him speaking. He did not want to reply with an ill-thought response to such a direct accusation of danger, but (Y/n) had clearly come prepared for whatever he might think to say. 

“Lord Stark,” (Y/n) sighed, resigned to maintaining the conversation alone, “I admire your sense of justice for your friends, but there comes a time to think of oneself, or at least one’s children. You will, I have no doubt, take this as intimidation, think I am attempting to block the honorable way. You believe you are doing the right thing, and I am here to tell you that you are. You’re doing the right thing for Jon Arryn and for your conscience, but make no mistake that the pair of you are the only two who will be served well by this course. It is the right thing for your guilt and for a deadman, not for the rest of Westeros.

“I mean, Stannis? As King? Make no mistake. Despite their personalities, Stannis is every bit Robert’s brother. The only thing Robert had in his favor was charm, and Stannis even lacks that.” (Y/n) scoffed at the idea of the morose, elder Baratheon sitting atop the Iron Throne. 

“So,” Ned’s voice was as low as his eyes, looking at the floor. “You admit Joffrey is not the true King.” 

(Y/n) paused, hesitating for only a moment, but it was enough for Ned to realize his words were to some degree correct. “Joffrey may not be the rightful King, but I believe he is the  _ right  _ one. Joffrey, as you’ve seen, would be no one’s first choice, but his undisputed reign, however brief, guarantees peace. What you propose leads to war and death and destruction from which no one benefits.  _ Peace  _ is what the Seven Kingdoms need.”

Ned wasn’t sure he intended to follow it, but he found he did want the young woman’s advice. “What, then, would you have me do?”

“Wait.” (Y/n) plainly stated. “A few months at the most. Joffrey will find some small slight, some matter of policy or gold which you’ve done in a way which he disapproves. He will ask you to return your pin as Hand. Do it without question. My sister will not attempt to enforce any contract for Sansa’s hand without Robert alive, and you will be free to journey with your children home. Take your daughters, and return to Winterfell where you belong.” 

“And who would take my place?” Ned already knew the answer.

“My father, of course.” 

Ned sat back on the edge of his desk with a heavy sigh, thinking that they had finally reached the true purpose of this conversation. “That is why you come to me then, to make way for your father. To ensure you do live to see him at this desk, in this room.” Ned motioned toward the window, the damned light at which their conversation had began. “It would give you control of the Rock sooner.”

(Y/n) smiled, a genuine, amused thing. “You are, I daresay, the first and only man in the Seven who has ever questioned my loyalty to my father. Knowing, as you do, what I’ve given up for him, I imagined you wiser than to do so. Even if it were as you say, and I assure you it is not, I am none so foolish as to go behind my father’s back to take control of the Westerlands.”

“Then what do you gain from this?” Ned asked, “I have been in King’s Landing long enough to know that even the most trustworthy people gain something from their loyalty.” 

(Y/n) shrugged. This was, by no means, the revelation to her that it clearly was to Ned Stark “Perhaps that is true, perhaps I am gaining something from all of this. Or perhaps, for once, it might be possible for you to believe that someone without the last name Stark is capable of doing the right thing.” 

There was a long quiet between the two in which (Y/n) leaned back and wrapped her hands over her stomach, looking thoughtfully out the window. 

When Ned spoke again, it was a whisper. “Lady (Y/n), are you with child?”

(Y/n) was heavy with child, too heavy for only a few months. The Maester had whispered words with her father in the hall after looking in on her. 

“More than one.”

“Worried.”

“Large.”

“Like Joanna.” 

The last should have scared her, but (Y/n) had no time for such worries. 

There were greater moves being made than those of her body.

Namely, those of Catelyn Stark.

(Y/n) stormed down the hall, as much as she could at her size. 

Her eyes were red, with tears or rage, one could not be sure, but she looked every bit a woman ready to kill. She  _ was  _ every bit a woman ready to kill.

The Mountain, ever stationed outside her father’s study, stepped aside as she approached. 

(Y/n) shoved open the door, not bothering to allow it to close behind.

Let the Mountain hear. Let the Rock hear. Let the whole of the Westerlands and Westeros hear what she had to say.

Her husband, Harwyn, was stationed inside the open door. 

The most useless guard in existence. The most useless man in existence. He thought himself worthy because he got her with child in their single torrid night together. He thought he had earned the Lannister’s respect. He was wrong, not that he’d realized that yet. He was nothing more than a hulking mass of flesh, and he had foolishly served his entire purpose to a family who did not consider him one of their own.

As the lesser brother of House Lannister looked up, Kevan jumped to his feet to free the chair in front of his brother’s desk for (Y/n).

“Have you seen this?” (Y/n) growled, ignoring the gesture. Her voice was dark, cold as she brandished a scroll in her left fist. 

Tywin lifted an eyebrow. His daughter was not prone to exaggerations, of any kind. Even in her pregnancy, emotions did not vex her. She was far too disciplined for such outbursts of rage. “I presume not, as I’ve had no cause for anger today.” 

(Y/n) tossed the crumbled paper onto her father’s desk, but her hand remained clenched in its fists as if it was looking for something, anything to squeeze the life out of, “Word from Jaime.”

Tywin smoothed out the paper, and Kevan forgot his attempts to get (Y/n) to sit. He circled the wood to look over the older lord’s shoulder at the message. 

It was minutes, several long agonizing minutes, before her father finally looked up from the single sentence scratched into the paper. His head rose at a pace that was agonizing in its slowness, but when his gaze finally met his daughter’s it was that of a lion rearing back its’ head to strike. 

“Can we confirm this?” His tone mirrored his daughter’s low voice.

(Y/n) gave a single nod. “It was accompanied by word from the Riverlands.”

Gracefully, like a predator stalking its prey, Tywin pushed to his feet, sending Kevan back a step in his wake. “Brother,” Tywin’s eyes didn’t leave his daughter’s. “Call the banners.”

Harwyn stepped from his shadowy corner, “For what purpose, my Lord?” 

Tywin turned his deadly gaze on his new son, and even the proud knight seemed to shrink back inside of the barrell that made up his chest. “Catelyn Stark has accused Tyrion of the murder of Bran Stark and kidnapped him on his return to us.”

(Y/n) took the chance to sum up her father’s thoughts in three words. “This is war.”

“Open,” The order came from somewhere near the back of the procession, and the guards at the top of the stairs each took a handle and pulled the doors wide.

The creaking brought a hush to the crowded room beyond who had not been expecting interruption. The chatter that had been present slowly died away as the newcomer joined their ranks.

“My deepest apologies for being late,” (Y/n) called out, slipping seamlessly to fill the quiet as if she did not know or care that her presence was a shockingly unwelcome surprise. With a grand flourish of her hands, (Y/n) waved to all of the room in greeting. “I do hope I am not interrupting.”

Silence. A long, empty silence.

Then, from the center a hearty chuckle. 

(Y/n) stepped under the middle archway and greeted Tyrion’s relieved smile with her usual smirk. 

“Brother,” she gave only a curt nod in acknowledgment before turning to meet the more distinguished guests on their platform.

Lady Arryn rose from her seat to stand beside her sister with a wide-eyed expression that could only be managed by someone subject to her particular kind of lunacy. “Who gave you the right to enter my home?”

“I gave myself the right,” (Y/n) meandered along, circling the edge of the room, a show of her indifference to Lysa’s power as much as it was a show of her own confidence. 

The Eyrie truly was a dreadful place. The mountains helped; they were beautiful, like a painting out of every window. But the keep was something more reminiscent of Harrenhal. Dim, cold, giving the appearance that it was haunted by its former patriarch. 

(Y/n) rather hoped the hall wasn’t haunted by Jon Arryn. She doubted he would take kindly to her presence. Not that she believed in spirits of any kind.

“You have no business here!” Lysa roared, taking a step dangerously close to the ledge over which she sat.

“On the contrary,” (Y/n) wandered over to the nearest bench and, with a glowering look, sent the lesser ladies occupying the seat scurrying away, “He,” she pointed to Tyrion as she settled in, “is my business.” 

“You cannot pay your way out of this. Your brother has already called for his trial by combat,” Lady Catelyn’s voice was steadier than her sister’s but by no means more inviting.

“Excellent,” (Y/n) clapped her hands, “Then he saves me the step of demanding one.” 

“What cause have you for wanting such a thing?” Lysa’s nose turned up at the prospect, an unpleasant look for an unpleasant woman. It made her already large nose look even more like a beak. 

“I have brought my brother’s champion.” (Y/n) snapped twice, a definitive sound that echoed off the chamber walls. “I’m sure you recall my husband, Lord Harwyn.”

The doors creaked open once more.

(Y/n) would be wrong if she tried to claim that she wasn’t proud of the bloody shoe prints that trailed her as Harwyn escorted her up the small flight of stairs. 

There was something terribly Lannister about leaving the blood of her enemies in her wake, feeling their life draining out under her feet. 

“I believe,” (Y/n) let go of Harwyn’s steadying grasp as she reached the top of the overlook, “that my husband has won the day, and the trial, in my brother’s name.” 

Lysa looked on the red at (Y/n)’s heels and snarled out with a venom, “Take your brother and go.” 

(Y/n) bowed her head. In her advanced state, she could bow little else without toppling over. “Thank you, Lady Arryn.” 

(Y/n) sidestepped a guard to stand at Catelyn’s side and leaned in as if she were embracing the older woman.

Catelyn stiffened as (Y/n)’s arms came up to rest upon her shoulders, and every body in the room tensed for action, listening intently for provocation by either side.

(Y/n) pressed her lips against Catelyn’s ear and spoke in a voice so low that even with no other noise and an echoey, stone chamber not a word carried to any others present. 

“You think your son’s name on my arm will protect you from my wrath, and yet my name on his arm is not good enough to protect my brother.” (Y/n)’s hands gripped tighter to Catelyn’s dress. Her nails cut through the fabric and stung Catelyn’s skin. “Make no mistake. This will be your only warning. I care for my family just as deeply as you do for yours, and I will not tolerate such insolence again. The next time you touch one of my brothers, no Stark will leave alive.” 

Catelyn’s eyes stared straight ahead when (Y/n) turned and retreated back over the deadman’s blood. The steps up and down smeared into one another and became indistinguishable trail. 

Like the train of her crimson wedding cloak, the blood red stain followed her out the door and into the snow. 

“Where are we going?” Tyrion occupied the seat across from her in the carriage. 

Normally, he would have ridden on horseback, but that was dominantly for the sake of expectation. 

His ‘brother’ Harwyn was outside, riding with the guard. Usually, the only recusal from joining the rest of the men would have been for all of the highborn lords and ladies to take refuge in the carriage. As it were, Tyrion was showing a great deal of disrespect to their traveling companions.

Though, he imagined Harwyn would say nothing and most of the low-born swords would not take it as the slight it was. They would assume that Tyrion’s height had made him in some way lesser to them and that this was merely him showing his weakness.

Neither, of course, was true. Tyrion could ride well enough with his saddle to keep up, and despite his imprisonment he felt more than fine to ride. 

There were, however, more important things than keeping up appearances to nameless, faceless, meaningless soldiers. 

“You won’t make it back to the Rock in this state,” Tyrion gestured to hulking mass that had become of his sister’s belly. 

“No, I won’t.” (Y/n) shifted her hands beneath the protrusion to lift some of the weight off of her aching back. “We’re heading to the Twins. Aunt Genna is waiting for us there.”

“And from there?” Tyrion asked.  

Trying desperately to find a comfortable seat, (Y/n) huffed and shifted her waist yet again. “Genna has business to attend with House Frey. She will accompany me home when I am well, and her deed is done.”

“And me?” 

“I believe Father has asked after you.”

Tyrion let his head thunk back against the wall behind him. “Joy,” he grumbled.

(Y/n) smiled, “No need to fear, brother. I believe it is a posting.” 

Tyrion let the words hang for a moment before switching the conversation. There was no elegant way to put it, but it needed to be said. “Thank you, (Y/n). I know Father sent you, no doubt. But thank you.” 

(Y/n) let her head lull to one side so as to look on her brother at eye level. 

Their family was not one for emotion. Cersei was too cruel to feel any, save those of a mother for her child. Jaime kept his locked deep inside, only sharing them on the rare occasion he was truly at someone’s mercy. Tyrion was rarely sober enough to remember what he was feeling, not that he felt safe enough to divulge them when there wasn’t a drink in his hand. (Y/n) hid her own under the cold, calculating mask of Tywin Lannister. 

It was a truly unique and rare occasion for any of the siblings, particularly (Y/n), to show what they were feeling. But on those rare occasions (Y/n) set her mask aside, it was only for her brothers. 

“Tyrion, Father did not order me after you. I was the one to tell him I was coming.”

“The Pride of the Rock,” Tyrion tossed the Maester’s letter on the table in front of his sister. “How much of that is embellishment to win your favor?” 

(Y/n) glanced up at her brother through her lashes. Even when it was out from under her watchful eye, her hand did not cease its elegant arcs over the paper before her, crafting what Tyrion was sure was an equally elegant response. 

Tyrion could recall (Y/n)’s birth the same way Jaime often recalled his own. 

‘You came into this world shouting, and you haven’t shut up since.’ Jaime used to say to his younger brother.

Tyrion, only a boy himself at the time, had been in the hall when his younger sister entered the world. He’d sat on the floor worrying his bottom lip as he waited for the Maester to come out with the final news. 

When Ashara’s cries had finally quieted down, Tyrion had expected a baby’s wail. All experience and knowledge he had on the subject had led him to believe his sibling would cry with their first breath of air. He fretted that something had gone horribly wrong when no sound came from the room, save the Maester’s shuffling feet. 

Maester Orland waddled out of the bedchamber with a bundle of cloth in his arms, outstretched from his body with a disagreeable face. 

‘A girl, I’m afraid,’ the Maester shoved the child at the young Tyrion. ‘Normal and healthy, at least. I must see to Ashara. Take her to your father. He will no doubt be displeased.’ 

The baby was rather large for Tyrion to hold, but he cradled her to his chest with all the care in the world. 

Tyrion had been the first person in the world to hold little (Y/n). Even before their father, even before her mother, even before Jaime, and long before Cersei. It was, therefore, with some certainty that Tyrion could say (Y/n) was not molded into Tywin’s ideal. (Y/n) was born perfect. 

For sure, Genna had to teach her to write in the beautiful script that now lettered the paper in front of her, but everything which made her (Y/n) was ingrained in her from her beginning. 

The entire walk from Ashara’s chambers to Tywin’s library she had stared up at Tyrion with the same silent, judgmental look that colored her face even to the present.

(Y/n) was thoroughly unamused, but after so many years in her company Tyrion was used to her cold mask. He knew that, while identical to his father’s, her hardened expressions were at least occasionally capable of hiding amusement or cracking into a smile. Tyrion had made an art of telling exactly when and how her lips would finally pull up at the corners. 

“Dear brother,” (Y/n)’s eyebrow rose nearly as high as her incredulous tone, “you think anyone would dare deceive me, even for the sake of flattery.”

“No,” Tyrion broke from his reminiscing. “I certainly don’t.” 

“Then let us presume it is as the maester says.” (Y/n) set aside her work and leaned back in the chair, resting her hands over her ever larger stomach. “What will this mean?”

“Why it means…” Tyrion wasn’t sure he wanted to say, but under (Y/n)’s watchful, waiting gaze he knew he had to speak. She was looking at him expectantly; she knew what was to come. “Sister, you cannot mean to do this. If we lose you…”

“If you lose me, you mean,” (Y/n) corrected with a tilt to her lip that was as close as she ever came to a smile away from the Rock. “Brother,” (Y/n) reached out a hand, and Tyrion found himself meeting her halfway. “I did not leave you with Catelyn Stark. I won’t leave you with our family either. You are one of us, and Father raised me to protect my own, even if we have different understandings of what is ours.”

Given (Y/n)’s condition, the Lannister trio of Tyrion, (Y/n), and Genna were held months at the Twins. As (Y/n)’s belly swelled, so did the tension of the Kingdoms. Until finally, at once, both burst. 

(Y/n) panted for breath, gasping in lung full after lung full. She felt like a sailor drowning in the Sunset Sea. Every gulp eased her pain, but only for the moment it came in.

“Where” Gasp. “Is” Gasp. “My” Gasp. “Brother”.

The Maester pressed a cold, wet cloth to her forehead, trying to stem the sweat that was pouring out of her as the hours drug on. “No men are allowed in the birthing chamber. Only your mother and the midwives.”

With the next roar of pain, (Y/n) grabbed the old man by the neck of his robe and wrenched his face down over hers. “Bring. Me. Tyrion.” 

Despite the maester’s feeble protests, a midwife ran from the room and came back with the shorter Lannister on her heels.

Tyrion held (Y/n)’s hand through hours of screams. His fingers went numb from her clutches while her voice went hoarse with cries. His ears stung at the volume of the noise, and his head ached from the pain of listening so closely. His mouth was dry; his stomach was empty. He smelled of sweat and blood, like the room around them. 

But not once did Tyrion move. Not once did he complain. 

This was how his mother died. This was how (Y/n)’s mother died. This was how he caused his mother’s death. This was how (Y/n) caused her mother’s death.

He hadn’t been there for his mother, nor (Y/n) for hers. 

Joanna and Ashara had died screaming and alone. They had died in the arms of a strange old man they did not know. They had died lying in the same birthing bed. They had died bringing their last children into the world. They had died… 

They had died. 

Tyrion refused to let that happen to her. 

But from her screams, from her pain, from her tears, it was plain that (Y/n) was dying now. 

The first child came easy. A bald, beautiful baby boy. He was small in size though not sharing Tyrion’s condition. The babe was placed in Genna’s arms and ushered quickly from the room. 

The second, not as much. The girl boasted a near full head of Lannister blonde hair, and her screams nearly matched her mother’s in furiocity as she entered the world. 

It was then, as a nursing maid bundled the child away to join Genna and the other outside, that the Maester looked up from under his sister’s skirts. Tyrion could see the color drain from the old man’s face as he held up three fingers. “There’s another.”

No one ever survived a third. The only time Tyrion had ever heard of such a thing happening to nobility had been the Goodbrothers in the Iron Islands, tales of three boys born the size of sailors who practically tore their mother apart to enter the world. They said the woman died bloodied. They said she would’ve died screaming if she’d had lungs left to breath. No one in House Goodbrother had ever bothered to refute the tale, the monstrous sons she’d birthed even bragged of their feat. 

Tyrion held (Y/n)’s hand, and with the next pains, he cried with her. 

Tyrion could not lose his sister this same way, could not let another child into this family without a mother’s love. He could not bare a nephew as rejected and broken as himself, could not bare a niece as masked and guarded as (Y/n). 

Tywin hated Tyrion for killing the only woman he loved, and he would hate this child for killing the daughter that finally replaced her. 

“(Y/n),” Tyrion brushed away the hair plastered to his sister’s face. It was the first time, the only time, he had seen her looking anything less than perfect, and he’d never loved her more. “Sister, mine, your children need you now. Bring their sibling into this world, so they can meet you.”

Her voice had long turned from cries to rasping groans, but with her brother’s words, (Y/n) managed one last shout, pushing the baby from her as she collapsed onto the bed. 

The Maester handed the bloody mound of crying flesh to Tyrion and shoved him from the room. 

The scream that ripped through the air around the Twins was a blood-curdling one. It filtered out through the windows of the upper chambers and fell down upon the ears of the men surrounding the keep.

“It sounds as if there is a woman being tortured in there.”

“It’s the Twins. I would not be surprised to hear anything of Walder Frey.” 

Just as the rest of the men were humming their agreement, their liege lord’s voice called out, “Ah, men too young to know the call. That’s no torture, boys. That’s the screams of a woman in birth.”

Robb Stark glanced over his shoulder on hearing the booming voice of his closest advisor, Lord Umber. “One of his wives or one of his daughters?” Robb joked back, wandering over to join the fray. 

Greatjon slapped a hand on the Stark’s shoulder. “Perhaps a woman who’s both.”

The group of soldiers guffawed. 

Robb’s eyes trailed over the keep. He knew there was no way to tell which window the sound came from, but when the next scream pierced the air, he felt an urge coming over him to go and find its source.

Shaking his head, Robb turned and backed away from the group of men, returning to talk with his mother over her mission with Lord Walder.

Later, a bard writing of the day would call it a miracle. The Triplets at the Twins. 

And later still, when the name on (Y/n)’s arm and the name on Robb’s had passed into legend, they would say it was the gods themselves who came down and touched (Y/n)’s life that day. They would say the gods could not bare the injustice of her dying so close, but so far, from her mate. 

On orders, an army of Northerners had been allowed to pass into the Riverlands. War had finally begun. 

The fighting was vicious and bloody. At the incredibly slow pace she would have to set given her condition, there was no sure way for (Y/n) to find passage to the Rock. (Y/n) spent a whole month alone at the Twins with only the company of ugly Frey girls and dimwitted Frey boys on hand to entertain her. They didn’t even have a library, the Freys. 

It was dull, dreadfully dull.  

Tywin had called for Tyrion the moment word had reached him that his daughter had survived her ordeal. Sympathy was in short supply in wartime, and Tywin was saving what little he had for souls weaker than his daughter. He knew (Y/n) would be fine.

Aunt Genna, her task done, was similarly ordered back to the Rock. (Y/n) had sent her children along with her. 

The Twins had never fallen, but (Y/n) was not willing to take that chance. The Rock was the only place she knew they would be safe, the only place where all eyes watching were on their side. It was only with the greatest care, and a few dead spies, that (Y/n) herself had not been found in Walder Frey’s home. She was not about to risk her family, her children, in that way for nothing more than company.

For once in her life, (Y/n) admitted that she needed time to heal, that she was in a state that was of no use to her father or her family. 

It spoke to how low she was, how near death she had been, that when she could finally walk again the first place she had asked to go was the house of a landed knight serving under Walder Frey, several leagues down the road. There, in his garden, was a small, rather puny weirwood tree, the only one for a day’s ride in any direction.

(Y/n) hobbled out alone and, away from the Frey’s prying eyes, threw herself at the base of the tree.

“I never believed in the new gods. I am not certain I believe in the old ones either. Still, a lack of faith in you is far better than a disbelief of them.” With slow, shuddering breath, (Y/n) removed herself from where she was wrapped around the tree and knelt before it. “Because right now, I desperately need someone to pray to.”

And so she sat there, for hours, talking to a tree.

And when she rose, she felt better for it. Not that it was something she would ever admit.

Whatever peace (Y/n) found lasted as long as it took to ride back to the Twins. 

On her return, it took only the news presented her to decide: if this was what she got for praying to the old gods, then they could go in the trash heap where she’d shoved the new.

“A message from your father, delivered by hand,” Lord Walder held out the paper, seal facing her. “If it says anything like his letter to me, I imagine you will be leaving us soon.”

“ _ Jaime captured. Harwyn dead. Return with the Mountain.”  _

As if she needed the last sentence. 

There were few moments in Robb Stark’s life that he could look back on with some certainty and know that his father would be ashamed of him, but that moment Lord Umber pulled him into the trees was certainly one.

“Is this the man?” Lord Umber asked, gesturing to the knight pinned to his knees by three of the Greatjon’s sons. 

Robb studied the figure carefully; though, he did not need to. He would know it anywhere. It was the man that haunted his dreams, cursed his nightmares. It was the body he imagined when he hacked training poles to bits, when he sent soldiers hurtling to the ground in sparring matches, when racked an arrow and aimed for the target. 

It was his enemy. More than Joffrey would ever be. 

“None of us have met him, but we gather you were at the wedding and would be able to pick out the man. He could prove a valuable prisoner, not so much as the Kingslayer but enough to be worth keeping.” The Greatjon explained, without realizing that Robb was not listening.

“So?” one of the sons holding him down asked Robb. “Is it Harwyn Plumm?”

Robb crouched on the balls of his feet, slowly lowering himself to the level of the man’s face. 

The Umber holding Harwyn’s left arm clutched at his hair and wrenched his head up to look Robb dead in the eye. 

“Hello Harwyn,” Robb sneered. 

Harwyn snarled between his teeth but did not dare to look away from the Northman. 

“You look different from the last time I saw you.” A cruel observation that Robb made with a slight thrill. 

A fresh, bloody gash had sliced across the man’s left eye sometime during the battle. The dirt and grime of war camps mingled with the fresh blood in a sticky sludge that covered the lower half of his face.

His brutish features looked even more severe, even more dangerous, even more menacing. Harwyn Plumm, truly a force, or at least he used to be.

Robb pushed himself to his feet and placed a hand to the hilt of his sword.

“I won’t be making it to your prison,” Harwyn croaked out a response to Lord Umber though he did not, for a moment, abandon his staring match with Robb.

“No,” Robb agreed. “You won’t.” 

Robb unsheathed his sword. “I do hope your wife will forgive me.” 

To the rest of the group, to those unaware, it sounded like a cruel joke made at the expense of an enemy during his final breaths. Robb and Harwyn were alone in their knowledge that the plea was sincere.

With a whistle as it cut the air, Robb’s blade came down on Harwyn’s neck.

No one shed tears for Harwyn Plumm. No one mourned his loss. No one worried over what the gods had in store for him. No one pleaded for the chance to lay his body to rest. No one demanded vengeance for his life.

Harwyn Plumm’s death was lost in the much bolder news permeating the letter. 

Every pound of her horse’s hooves felt like it was drumming out the words to a beat as (Y/n) rode.

Jaime captured. Jaime captured. Jaime captured.

Harwyn was an afterthought. 

“Perhaps I should thank him. At least Robb cleaned up one mess for us,” (Y/n) grumbled to the Mountain as he helped her mount her horse. 

And that was the only time any word of Harwyn’s death left his wife’s lips before her mind was back to the more important matter at hand.

Jaime captured. Jaime captured. Jaime captured.

“Your mate,” Tywin threw the letter onto the pile of papers between him and his daughter, “is demanding Northern independence.”

“My mate is a fool.” (Y/n) dismissed. “He’s a soldier, not a King.”

“They’ve named him their King,” Kevan pointed out.

“Just because he says it doesn’t make it so.” 

“He didn’t say it,” Kevan argued, leaning into the confrontation, “his men did. That is a true King.” 

Tywin gave a humm of passive agreement. For a moment (Y/n) thought she saw a hint of respect, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared.

(Y/n) shrugged as she slouched back in her chair. For once, she thought that her two companions were rather missing the point. “Robb’s men declared him King, but so did Robert’s men. Robert held the title, but it does not mean he did the deed. Jon Arryn ran Westeros for decades. Ran it into the ground,” she quickly stipulated, “but ran it nonetheless. Robb will be the same as his namesake, only he won’t even have the meager might of Jon Arryn to guide the way. He knows the North. He knows Winterfell, but he was raised to fight and to lead, not to rule. Put the man in front of a trade agreement, and he will be as lost as we would be north of the Wall. Give the man a crown, and he will forget where he put it down by the next moon.”

(Y/n), Uncle Kevan, and Tywin were the only three in the war tent. The Mountain and one of Harwyn’s elder brother guarded the door, but neither of them was close enough to hear the conversation inside over the bustling of preparations. 

Probably for the best. 

“His title doesn’t matter.” Tywin waved the matter away. “If he believes himself King, then we will fight him like a King.”

“And what of Jaime then?” (Y/n) uncrossed her legs and pressed forward in her chair. 

“We will find a way.” Tywin paused for a moment before carefully changing his words, “you will find a way.” 

Jaime Lannister lay in the mud covering the floor of his cell, trying unsuccessfully to find a quiet enough moment to get some rest. 

His body was weak, growing weaker by the day. With his arms tied to a pole behind his back, they had gone completely unused since he arrived in the Stark camp. He could feel the strength in his sword hand beginning to go, and while the skill would never leave him he knew he would need more than his memory when he managed to find his way back to the battlefield. 

Reconstructing his cell at this new encampment, Stark put Jaime near the center of tents. Every noise from the slop of meals to the passing of midnight guards went right by his enclosure, and every man made it a point to kick a toe full of dirt at him, just in case he was asleep.

Late afternoon, just after the sun had set, was the only time he could find some peace. Robb Stark’s men were all taking evening meals, and his lords and advisors were in his tent planning their next attack on Tywin Lannister.

They acted like Jaime didn’t know this. One of them, the great buffoon that was Lord Umber, even taunted Jaime with their plans, daring him to guess where they were going, teasing what he would do when they finally caught the Great Lion.

As if Jaime didn’t know where they were. He was no Tyrion, but Jaime wasn’t entirely stupid. The height of the hills had been rising by the day. The depths of the valleys in which they slept had become rockier every night. 

Jaime had spent his entire childhood running around the Rock. As he grew, he traveled with the guard putting down rebellions and imprisoning thieves. He squired for Lord Crakehall and befriended House Marbrand. Jaime was the son of Tywin Lannister. He was born to be lord of the Westerlands, and he would recognize his homelands anywhere. 

By his best estimates, they were two days north of the Golden Tooth. The rolling hills were slowly growing higher, but it would not be until the other side of Ashemark that they would become the mountains of the Rock.

The hills were certainly slowing down the party, but Jaime imagined the mountains would draw them to a standstill. The Northmen were used to flat plains of ice. They could handle cold better than anyone. The occasional snow falls left them entirely unphased, but the rise and fall of the land was causing many of them difficulties that Jaime couldn’t help but find amusing. 

The night prior, two young soldiers who’d been stationed as his guard had gotten sick from the changing heights. Jaime knew many a remedy for such illness, but he let the men be. The stench of their sickness invaded his cell, but he was happy to endure it. Given the placement of his cell and guards which Lord Stark had so kindly given him, the rest of the camp was forced to suffer with him. 

Even now, with no rain to wash away the debris, the contents of the men’s stomach were left to bake in the sun then freeze in the night. 

Jaime buried his face in his hair to hide from the stench. His hair wasn’t much better. It had been far too long since he bathed; he’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be clean.

Nothing though, not his hair, not his post, not the mud, could sufficiently hide from the noise. The squelch of boots hitting sludge and the smack as their owner pulled them from where they stuck. The swish of a cloak was muffled as it dragged along the ground, the weight of the debris it picked up burdening its movement. Then, unexpectedly, the clank of a chain being removed.

Jaime looked up to see his cell being unlocked by the dim light of a torch. 

“The King in the North!” Jaime jeered in delight as Robb Stark entered his prison. “I keep expecting you to leave me at one castle or another for safekeeping, but you drag me along from camp to camp. Have you grown fond of me Stark? Is that it? I’ve never seen you with a girl.” 

Jaime leaned in, as much as his chains could bear and spoke in a conspiratorial tone, “Or perhaps it’s not me you’re fond of; perhaps it is a girl? Can’t have the girl you want, so you keep me around as the next best thing? I must admit (Y/n) and I both have stunningly good looks.” 

Robb’s jaw visibly clenched, and Jaime couldn’t bite back his smile at getting under the little lord’s skin. His sister would, no doubt, be unappreciative of being dragged into his little spats with her mate, but Jaime doubted there was much else he could say that would rattle the young Stark. Stark was, after all, dumb enough to think he was winning.

“If I left you with one of my bannermen,” Robb spoke in as cold and emotionless a voice as he could manage to use addressing a man like the Kingslayer, “your father would know within a fortnight. My bannermen would receive a raven with a message: ‘Release my son, and you’ll be rich beyond your dreams. Refuse, and your house will be destroyed, root and stem’.” 

Even as Robb spoke, Jaime was shaking his head. “You don’t trust the loyalty of the men following you into battle.” 

In truth, Jaime never trusted his men, but Jaime was a Lannister. Lannisters never trusted anyone. The Starks, the North, claimed to be made of more honorable, more loyal stuff than him. 

“I trust my men with my life. Just not with yours.”  

If Jaime had absolutely anything to do during his capture, he wouldn’t have been quite so bored out of his mind, and if he wasn’t quite so bored out of his mind, he wouldn’t have been paying attention so acutely to Robb Stark, the only interesting thing to happen to him in days. If he hadn’t been paying such close attention, he might have missed the way the corner of Robb’s mouth lifted only slightly.

“Sounds like something my sister would say.” The way Robb’s eyebrow rose told Jaime all he needed to know on the matter. “Smart woman, my sister. You’re a smart boy to learn from her.” 

The small smile on Robb’s face slowly leaked away.

“What’s wrong?” Jaime tilted to one side, curiously. “Don’t like being called boy?” Jaimed added a mocking pout, “Insulted?”

Robb Stark’s eyes trailed to something behind Jaime, and Jaime was, for a moment, confused until he heard a rustling from the trees. There was a stamp of something that sounded like a hoof followed by a low, deep growl. Jaime tried to look over his shoulder, but his restraints kept him in place. 

“You insult yourself Kingslayer,” Robb took on a smooth affect, somewhere between Jaime’s mocking words and his sister’s unshakeable superiority. 

Jaime could pretend he was listening to Robb, but it would have been a lie beyond his capabilities as a heavy panting drew closer to his back and began to circle the cage. 

“You’ve been defeated by a boy. You’re held captive by a boy.” 

The animal responsible for the rigidity in Jaime’s back finally came into view, in the light of a distant torch: a massive, monstrous wolf.

“Perhaps, you’ll be killed by a boy.” 

The beast, because it was no simple wolf, circled his cell like it was circling its next meal. Jaime subconsciously drew his legs into him as the thing entered the door, taking every inch left in the front of his cell to stand at its master’s side. 

“Stannis Baratheon sent ravens to all the high lords of Westeros.” 

Jaime couldn’t, wouldn’t, take his eyes off the creature before him, but Robb Stark certainly had his ear now. 

“That King Joffrey Baratheon is neither a true king, nor a true Baratheon. He’s your bastard son.” 

Jaime took a chance in removing his eyes from the direwolf to glare down Robb Stark. “Well if that’s true Stannis is the rightful king, how convenient for him,” Jaime felt like he was educating a child on politics, pointing out such obvious things. 

“My father learned the truth,” Robb ignored Jaime’s words to continue his tale, “that’s why you had him executed.”

The wolf huffed, drawing Jaime back to him. “I was your prisoner when Ned Stark lost his head.” 

“Your son,” the Stark’s growl matched his wolf’s, “killed him, so the world wouldn’t learn who fathered him, and you pushed my brother from a window because he saw you with the Queen.” Robb’s chin lifted into the air. 

It was a look Jaime knew well. It was a look he saw on his sisters’ faces, on Tyrion’s face every day. The look of confidence that came only with the absolute certainty one was right. He’d thought only Lannisters’ were capable of looking so smug, but it seemed what Starks lacked in pride they made up in self-righteousness.

“You have proof? Or do you want to trade gossip like a couple of fishwives?” 

“I’m sending one of your cousins down to King’s Landing with my peace terms.” 

Last Jaime had heard Cersei and Tyrion were the only Lannisters in King’s Landing, and neither of them had the power to accept or proffer peace with the claimed King in the North. There were only two Lannisters who could offer such a thing, and he was sure of where one of them was.

“King’s Landing you say?” Jaime’s lips lifted far more slowly than they were used to, but they eventually found their usual shape. He looked up at Robb Stark with a cocky smirk, impressively maintained in face of the threat of the wolf. “You should be sending them to the Rock.”

“And why would I do anything you suggest Kingslayer?” Robb asked, tensing his hand in the fur of his wolf to hold the creature back.

“Because, Lannister I may be, but you are breathing down the Rock while Baratheons threatens the Crownlands. My father might well want me alive, but our home and the Crown are as important as my head if not more.”

Robb gave a half-hearted laugh at the thought. “I’m supposed to believe your father would leave you to die in my hands because he’s too busy to be bothered?”

“Hardly,” Jaime waved the idea away with a jerk of his head. Even the uneasiness of the wolf at Robb’s side couldn’t shake the grin from his face. “He won’t let me die, but he won’t come for me himself by any means. Sending word to him is useless.

“Surely your mother warned you.” Jaime pulled at the irons holding him back and brought himself as close to Robb as he dared with a wild wolf baring down on him. He lowered his voice to a whisper so that any passing guards wouldn’t hear what he was saying to their king, “He’ll send my sister.” 

A shiver, quite visibly, ran down Robb Stark’s spine. 

“And something tells me you have far more to fear from her than my father could ever threaten you with.”

Tywin sniffed the dart. He was fairly certain of the poison, but the smell was confirmation enough. “Wolfsbane, a rare substance. This is no common assassin.”

“We hanged twenty men last night.” The man by the door stated bluntly. Clegane, the Mountain, not that Tywin ever called him such. Tywin did not glorify his men, too often they took it as placement above himself.

“I don’t care if you hanged a hundred. A man tried to kill me. I want his name, and I want his head.” As if killing twenty indiscriminate prisoners would satisfy Tywin’s anger. Whoever had done this had gotten their hands on Wolfsbane, an expensive poison usually only found in the cellars of men like Tywin himself. The man was an expert, not likely to be found amongst the commonfolk, and not likely to be caught so easily.

Gregor had the nerve to speak again, “We think it was an infiltrator from the Brotherhood Without Banners.”

Tywin did not think it likely that such a mangey bunch would have the means to get their hands on Wolfsbane, but it was as likely as any other explanation. “A pretentious name for a band of outlaws. We can’t allow rebels behind our lines to harass us with impunity. We look like fools, and they look like heroes. That’s how kings fall. I want them dead.” Tywin crossed the room to confront his man as his cupbearer laid the table. “Every one,” he emphasized.

“Killing them isn’t the problem. It’s finding them.” 

“You gone soft Clegane? I always thought you had a talent for violence.” He prodded. “Burn the villages. Burn the farms. Let them know what it means to choose the wrong side.” 

Clegane took his dismissal with a rumble of agreement.

Turning back to his table, Tywin thumbed over the dart. It did not take a genius, though Tywin thought himself one, to piece together that the hit had not been meant for him. 

No one in the Seven would ever mistake Tywin Lannister for a fool like Amory Lorch. By age, by banner, by name, and by appearance, the two men differed in every way. Even the most commonplace of assassination attempts would not have actively chosen the wrong target.

It left him to conclude that either the man had missed Tywin and struck Lorch by mistake or Lorch had been the target all along. Had the assassin not used wolfsbane, Tywin would have believed the former. As it were, only someone who had been paid very well could use that particular poison, and no one would pay someone so well unless they were a master. A master who would not miss.

The far greater question, for Tywin, was why someone would kill Amory Lorch with a far greater target so close by.

“Pity I’ll have to replace him on my war council,” Tywin mused to himself, stuffing the dart away in his pockets to consider later.

“Will it be another soldier, my lord?” His cupbearer had been gaining confidence in recent days, since he allowed her to ask after his father. She asked menial questions quite regularly at meals.

“No,” Tywin paced around the edge of the table. “I don’t believe it will be. I have just the person in mind.”

As she rode into the yard, nearly all movement ceased. Men slowly edged their way back against the walls, and those few who were on matters to urgent to halt, immediately dropped their heads and quickened their pace.

“Take him to the stable,” (Y/n) tossed her horse’s reins to a guard who’d dared to continue his rounds in her presence.

“Yes, My Lady,” the man quickly dropped his task and ushered the stallion away.

“You,” (Y/n) grabbed the tunic of a passing smith, “Where has my father set his war room?”

The boy, because he was certainly not old enough to be a man despite his height, looked on (Y/n) apprehensively. “Up the third flight of stairs. Somewhere on the East side. I-I do not know the room exactly.”

(Y/n) dropped his clothes and let the boy scurry off, “Good enough.”

Striding away, (Y/n) found the hall in question with relative ease. It was, after all, hard to miss Gregor Clegane. “Mountain,” She called to the man standing guard, “Is my father in?”

 “Alone with the cupbearer.” 

(Y/n) waved away the Mountain’s attempts to announce her and opened the door as silently as possible. She slipped between the crack and leaned her back against the wood to ensure it didn’t make a sound.

The cupbearer was clearling plates on the side table, dumping scraps into a bucket that was no doubt to be made into slop. Consistent scratching of a knife grating food off metal surfaces was the only sound in the room.

Tywin was sat at the head of the table, papers and maps splayed out over the entire length. His hand was furiously scratching out a letter, and (Y/n) had a feeling she knew its intended recipient.

“No need to write to me so hastily,” (Y/n) called out, “I’ve already arrived.”

The cupbearer in the corner jumped at the sound but made no move to turn.

Tywin did no such thing. The elder Lannister slammed his hand down on the table with a force. “An assassin has made it into our camp.”

(Y/n) shrugged, slinking towards the chair on his right hand side. “Assassins find their way into every camp. If you didn’t mind their use, you could have the head cut off the Stag in a fortnight.” 

“The Stag is the least of my concerns,” Tywin motioned for (Y/n) to take the chair. “What with the Wolf breathing down our door.” 

(Y/n) opted not to take the seat, instead leaning against the tall back of the chair. Since the death of Amory Lorch, she had been riding day and night on the back of a horse. (Y/n) felt like she never wanted to sit again, or at least she didn’t want to sit till her body learned to stand straight once more. 

“Visenya Targaryen expressed her gratitude that Loren the Last rode out to meet the Targaryen forces on the Field of Fire.” Visenya was something of a hero of (Y/n)’s. 

Her father had never particularly cared for the stories. He studied the Targaryens for battle strategies, for a better understanding of the threat of dragons, and for an appreciation of legacy. The finer details of drama behind the scenes were of no consequence to him. (Y/n) picked them up entirely from Tyrion and his books.

“Visenya was certain that Casterly Rock was the only keep in Westeros which could withstand Targaryen forces, even dragons. So certain, in fact, that she told her brother not to unleash any flame, for fear that the fire would prove the Rock could not burn down.” (Y/n) always loved to tell a story. Stories were a far more entertaining way to earn attention than shouting, though she was certainly capable of both. “Robb Stark has proven himself a capable general, but I think even you would agree he’s not Aegon the Conqueror.”

“True enough,” Tywin waved her story off with a wayward comment, but (Y/n) could tell he’d put the tale away for safe keeping. “Still, we’ve underestimated him for too long.”

“That,” (Y/n) sighed, picking up an empty wine cup with a morose expression, “sadly, appears to be the case.”

“Girl!” Tywin absentmindedly snapped his fingers, “wine for my daughter.”

(Y/n) didn’t bother to look on the girl who was filling her cup, choosing instead to continue her address. “Then let us estimate him. Robb Stark hasn’t organized with Stannis Baratheon. The North tried to approach Renly first, and Stannis is far too narrow-minded a man to take his brother’s former allies. He’ll see them as traitors already. But, if Robb Stark is at all worth his salt, and he’s certainly proven he is, then he’ll know the best time to attack us is when Stannis makes his run on King’s Landing.”

“He needs time to organize that.” Tywin retorted. 

He didn’t disagree, not at all in fact. However, after years of trusting only his daughter and his siblings, Tywin and (Y/n) had developed a system of strategizing. Parrying thoughts back and forth, trying to find the weakness in each other’s words seemed to be their best recourse, a recourse the two could only pursue with each other. 

“Jaime thought the same about the ambush. He thought the Northman didn’t have enough time or men, and they proved him wrong on both counts.” 

“And sacrificed a swath of his army in the process.” 

“A swath of his army that won him Jaime Lannister.” (Y/n) downed her wine in one gulp. “It may have been a sizeable chunk of his forces, but it was more than worth it. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I would,” Tywin conceded, “Though how he has enough to attack the Rock after that would be anyone’s guess.”

(Y/n) gave a nonchalant huff, “He’s won every battle he’s ever fought, and he’s won them with fewer men every time. If I were Robb Stark, with no army between me and the greatest castle in Westeros, I would take a shot. For him, the worst case is that he’s repelled with minimal loss. The best case, he takes the seat of House Lannister.” 

Tywin paused the to-and-fro to think. “More wine,” He mumbled to the girl, leaning his elbows to the table to press the tips of his fingers to his lips. 

“The pitcher’s empty, my lord. I’ll go fetch more.”

That. Voice.

(Y/n)’s head jerked around with a fury, only catching sight of a head of short brown hair and a small, childish figure. Nothing more than a girl’s back, impossible to distinguish. And yet that voice.

“Think on what I said,” (Y/n) barely registered what she was doing as she moved, unthinkingly, towards the servants’ exit. “I’ll return.” 

She knew that voice.

(Y/n) scoured the halls, scoured the keep, scoured the grounds, scoured the ruins. 

It had only been a sentence, but in that moment she’d been so sure. She knew that voice. 

“I don’t care what the rules are! It has to be her!” 

There it was, around the corner.

(Y/n) had been searching for an hour, maybe more, through the sprawling wreck of Harrenhal, and finally there it was again. Behind the rubble of what was once a guest chamber at the other end of the grounds. (Y/n) bent her head around the corner to find the girl again, back to her, angrily shouting at a Lannister soldier who was lounging lackadaisically against the waist high, overturned remains of a wall.  

“A girl knows not what she asks.” 

“I know full well what I ask! I name her!” 

(Y/n) didn’t know what this was, didn’t know who this was. But she was certain whatever it was wasn’t good and couldn’t wait for help. “Judging by your tone, I’m going to assume I am the ‘her’ in question.”

The girl whipped around in shock and confirmed (Y/n)’s suspicions.

“Hello, Arya.” A cool smile tugged at her lips as she watched the young girl’s face turn to horror. “It’s been too long. I must say this is the last place I expected to run into you.”

Arya turned on the man again, “Her! (Y/n) Lannister! I name her.”

“Name me?” (Y/n) strode across what remained of the room to join the pair. 

“A girl names a woman, but that is not a woman’s only name.” 

“Plumm then,” Arya was clearly panicking now. Her fists tugged on the man’s arm desperately. “Whatever her name. Her!” She pointed at (Y/n).

“A girl gives a man a name, but a name with a pair.” The soldier returned without any sense of care in the world. 

His accent was foreign. He certainly wasn’t from the Westerlands, or Westeros for that matter; Essos no doubt. As far as she knew, and she knew a great deal, her father had no supplement sellswords in the field, not yet anyway. Tywin Lannister only used sellswords as a last resort. Which meant there were only two ways for him to come by his armor: to be such a rich tradesmen that he could afford a life in the Westerlands which seemed unlikely given she did not know him or to have stolen the uniform from a dead man. And there was only one reason any man not forced into a war would willingly join its frontlines for a lord that was not his liege.

Assassins. 

Assassins from Essos, who spoke in tongues.

Lurching forward, (Y/n) grabbed Arya by the arm and yanked the young girl behind her back. “Faceless,” she snarled the word, stepped away from the stranger. 

The red haired man gave a small grin in return to the word. “A woman protects a girl, yet a girl wants a woman dead.” He reclined back against the half-melted stones as if the conversation was nothing more than his own amusement. 

“What?” 

“A girl,” the Faceless motioned to Arya, “owes a name, and a girl names a woman.” 

(Y/n)’s blood ran cold. “A name with a pair,” She whispered. 

It wasn’t often that she found herself afraid, but then it wasn’t often that (Y/n) faced a genuine threat of death. Most people wanted her and her father dead, but (Y/n) lived her life knowing, with absolute certainty, that she was among the few people in Westeros who were simply too valuable to kill. Yet here were a man, and a girl, who didn’t care. 

It was like being back in the birthing bed all over again, facing a death that didn’t care what her name was. 

But that wasn’t what worried her. 

(Y/n) had only read of the Faceless, never met one, never met one that she knew of anyway. 

Tyrion had given her a book of stories about them once. Of course, it was only legends; no Faceless had consulted its author on their origins. But she remembered one story in particular. 

(Y/n) whirled on Arya and sunk to her knees, clutching the girl’s arm in a vice grip. “Unname me.” She demanded.

“No!” Arya tried to slip her arm from (Y/n)’s grip, but it was far too tight. “Never!” 

“To name one is to name both! Unname me!” (Y/n) shouted. 

The legend was a tearful story of a man who found his mate, already married to another man, but the lesson was straight forward. The Many Faced God of Braavos was nothing more or less than Death. Mates came into the world to live and breath together as one, and worshipping Death the Faceless saw to it that mates, those who had joined hands and felt the mark, left the world as one. 

“A woman speaks the truth.” The Faceless said behind her. 

“One is both?” Arya looked exasperated as she twisted her arm back and forth, rubbing her wrist raw against (Y/n)’s palm.

“To kill me is to kill my mate.” (Y/n) elaborated, clenching hard to drive the point home. 

“Good! Let him die! Better than living with you!” Arya flipped her hand over and dug her nails into (Y/n)’s forearm, tearing at what she could reach.

(Y/n) let her go, but not from the pain. The attack barely reached her mind as (Y/n) wrenched up the sleeve of her dress, tearing it along the seam in her haste to reveal her mark. 

“This is my mate!” (Y/n) caught Arya by the hair and forced the girl to level her eyes with the name scarred into (Y/n)’s arm. 

There, as plain as the day it had appeared, was the name Stark, scratched eternally into (Y/n)’s skin. 

“No,” Arya stared at the word in utter disbelief. 

How could she not know? How could her mother and father have let that happen? Which of her siblings was cursed with a Lannister for a mate? Why had the old gods done this to them? 

“You want to help your brother?” (Y/n) spoke the words slowly, enunciating each for Arya’s ears. “If you kill me, you’ll be killing Robb.”

The Faceless Man allowed (Y/n) to escort him through the halls of the keep. 

“A girl gave a man a new name,” The Faceless told her. 

It came out almost as reassurance, but (Y/n) knew the assassin wouldn’t bother with such a thing. “Am I allowed to ask?” 

“No,” The Faceless answered. “It is why a man must leave. A boy is far from here.”

Joffrey. He was the only boy Arya could want dead.

(Y/n) tried to find it in her to warn someone, anyone, but she couldn’t. Blood or not, he proved he was no worthy Lannister anyhow. Let the bastard die for all the trouble he caused.  

The pair moving through Harrenhal looked like nothing more than a soldier and his lady meandering towards the edge of the keep. With (Y/n) Lannister at his side, the Faceless was stopped by no one to perform the duties of his soldier’s armor. 

Men of all sorts gave the pair a wide berth as they made their way through the halls of the keep. No one had the bravery to question what their lady could be doing with a commonplace soldier.

“The men fear a woman,” the Faceless observed as another soldier stood attention against the wall until the pair had passed.

“They’re right to,” (Y/n) agreed with the observation. There was no amount of emotion to her voice. (Y/n) took a great deal of pride in her power, but there was very little power in striking fear in the hearts of lesser men. 

The Faceless watched her with attentive eyes. They were the eyes of a man built to kill. The eyes were the only thing the Faceless could never change. When their victims looked in them, they were looking in the eyes of a killer. “The men do not know a woman bares an enemy’s name.” He observed without question.

“No, they don’t.” 

“Why is a woman here?” The Faceless asked. “A woman usually joins a man when two share a name.” 

(Y/n) bit back the retort on the tip of her tongue. This was no man to insult. “A woman wishes she could.” 

“A woman could be with a man if she wanted.”

(Y/n) let loose a derisive snort. She and Robb had had the same conversation long ago. “We both want, but what we want and what could be are two different things.” 

“A woman could be with a man if she wanted.” The Faceless repeated.

“A man could be with a woman if he wanted,” (Y/n) countered in the Faceless’ own phrasing. 

The Faceless shook his head and looked over at her, staring until (Y/n) finally turned to meet his knowing look. “A woman is smart,” he complimented slyly. “If a woman wanted, she could find a way.”

She had taken a great deal longer than was necessary to walk to and from the exit of Harrenhal, and Arya had started wondering if (Y/n) was going to come back at all.

When (Y/n) walked back into Arya’s room, she had a hard but thoughtful expression on her face. “I have a proposition for you.” 

“What is it?” Arya asked.

“If you’ll help me, I think I can get you back to your brother.”

_ The Wolf’s pack is growing smaller. He will take a bitch to make his pups for men to bare his arms. See to it that, at the wedding, he gets the new blood he deserves. _

“Leave us.”

(Y/n) sat at the opposite end of the long oak table, staring down her father with empty eyes that none in the room could read, even the Lord of House Lannister. Her nails picked absently at the edges of the letter. Even as the men sitting at the sides of the table began getting up and filing past her end, she did not divert her eyes from the sharp crease forming in her father’s forehead.

Tywin, similarly, did not watch the men, even as they eyed him anxiously. They were waiting for him to make some move to stop them from complying with his daughter’s demand, but none came.

(Y/n) whispered as the door thudded shut behind her after Lord Roland Crakehall, the last man to trail out of the room. “You’re sending my mate to the slaughter.” 

“That was always where this ended, (Y/n).” Tywin spoke with a tone that bordered on an empathy (Y/n) knew her father was not capable of.

“Then let’s find a better way.” 

Tywin lifted an eyebrow, a skepticism he had never felt towards her slowly forming in the pit of his stomach. “There is no better ending.” He declared flatly, “This is how his story ends. This is how Robb Stark dies.” 

“If he dies,” She said each word carefully, emphasizing each syllable as it left her tongue, “it is because you chose it to be so.” 

Tywin snorted. “Is that concern in your voice? So what if I order the Wolf’s head at my feet?” Tywin set his palms flat on the table and pushed out of his chair. He leaned down over his daughter with an authority he usually reserved for defiant enemies. “He dies. This is no discussion.”

“Father, I understand, but…”

“Then that is enough of this,” Tywin cut her off. “You object, but you know it’s the right course.”

(Y/n) didn’t want to, but she knew it was the only way. “Father, this is my mate who’s murder we plot.” 

“What of it?” Tywin was growing suspicious now. This was not their usual discourse. This was not his daughter advising him. This was his daughter defying him. For the first time.

Through the two decades of her life, Tywin and (Y/n) had stood, not side by side but back to back. They faced threats the other could not see, protected one another from what was coming up behind, watched blind spots in each other’s vision. They were two voices with one mind, but now the cracks, or rather the one crack, began to show. They shared everything but a soul, and it was a soul which would divide them.

And so it began. The fight, their fight, the only fight neither of them wanted, yet the only fight neither of them could lose.

“He is my mate. Mine!” (Y/n) ground out between her teeth. “Whether you like his name or not.”

“His name?” Tywin spat. “This is nothing about his name. This is about our name. House Lannister, or had you forgotten what name you carved into his arm.”

“Had you forgotten what name he carved into mine!” (Y/n) wore the dress she’d chased down Arya in, and the rip along the lining of her sleeve made it easy to turn and display the mark to her father. “I am his, and he is mine. No matter who my vows were spoken to, nothing can change that.” 

“That,” Tywin pointed down at the mark, not baring to look at it, “is the name of our enemy.”

(Y/n)’s fist came down on the table as she shot to her feet with all the rage she’d ever managed to muster, “You would brand me,  _ me _ , your enemy!” 

“I did not brand you!” Tywin rolled his eyes away from her outburst, “That was his doing.” 

“Neither of us chose this!” 

“Would you have?” Tywin took a step back towards her, crossing halfway to the table with his long stride. “Would you have chosen him?” 

(Y/n) hesitated for a moment. There were times she wished she could have chosen, desperately longed for someone she could love. Those times, however, were long past. “Yes,” she answered honestly.

“He’s a Stark! His mother kidnapped Tyrion!” Tywin bellowed.  “They declared war on our house. His father named your nephew a bastard. Their family defies your sister’s throne. Robb Stark took your husband’s head, and now he has Jaime!”

The words cut through (Y/n) and found her wincing and turning away.

“Tell me, daughter.” Tywin hissed, “What do you think your precious mate is doing to him right now? Do you think Jaime has the luxury of debating with Robb Stark whether his life will end?”

“Robb wouldn’t end Jaime’s life,” (Y/n) said it quietly but assuredly.

Tywin laughed, a harsh, cruel laugh that mocked her for saying such a thing. “And how would you know?”

(Y/n) glared up at her father with a burning passion he’d only seen once before. It was the face she made when she found out Catelyn had Tyrion, “Because he knows what I would do to him if he did.” 

“You don’t have the strength for that.”

“I have given my life for this family! I am willing to give everything for this family!” (Y/n) countered with a roar.

“Everything but Robb Stark.” 

The name broke her. The thought of what everything entailed broke her, but what hurt more was the knowledge that she was right, that Tywin Lannister was wrong. She was willing to give everything, everything including Robb Stark. She just didn’t want to.

(Y/n) slowly, hesitantly, sunk to her knees, hanging her head in shame as she uttered the one word she had been taught never to speak. “Please.” For the first time in her life, (Y/n) looked up to see her father glaring down on her, his face colored in a mixture of rage and shame. 

Tywin stepped back from his daughter in disgust. “How dare you.”

(Y/n) could feel the tears welling in her eyes and kept her head down to hide them from the judgment in Tywin’s face. “Father, I have never defied you. I will never defy you. If you tell me this is the only way, then I will fulfill your wish without question. I will deliver the order to the Boltons and the Freys myself. I will stand aside as every Stark dies. I will ride to the Twins and bring back his head and lay it at your feet, and I will say nothing of this outside of this room again for as long as I draw breath.” (Y/n) stopped only long enough to suck air back into her lungs, as if the mention of her last breath reminded her that it was coming. “But this is my mate, and I am begging you to find another way.”

“I did not raise you to be a beggar’s wife.”

“No, you did not raise me to be a beggar’s wife,” (Y/n) agreed. “You raised me to be you in all things, and this is my proof that you have finally succeeded.” Through a web of tears, (Y/n) spread her arms out wide, absolute deference, absolute submission. “I am you. Because I know the only thing you would ever beg for is Joanna back.”

(Y/n) walked into the supposedly neutral camp under a banner of peace. Though several valleys north of the Stark camp, the tent was still thoroughly inside the boundaries of the Westerlands. The spot was, no doubt, purposefully chosen by the Northmen as a show of force. Their entire army was entrenched within Lannister territory, and (Y/n) was greeting an enemy council that was claiming her land as its own. 

There was no mistake that the men were her enemies. From the moment she entered the small circle of tents, eyes were on her and swords were drawn. 

For a banner of peace, the Northern Lords had brought a vast number of soldiers. (Y/n) brought only one. It was, granted, an impressive one.

The Mountain had become (Y/n)’s shadow. As they moved into the camp, his toes were constantly under threat of catching the backs of her heels. The hilt of his massive sword reached out so far as to occasionally brush (Y/n)’s hip with a particularly long stride. No man could surprise her from behind because there was no space between herself and Ser Gregor Clegane in which to reach her, and no man could attack her headlong for fear of the behemoth reaching around her front to draw his sword around her. With one man, she was as protected as any of the northern sons she passed with their personal guards.

The soldiers around the camp, some forty in number, whispered when she walked past. They watched from open flaps or around campfires as (Y/n) made her way to the large white tent in the center of their convoy. 

A scout beside the door saw her approach and ducked inside to announce the enemy presence. 

“Lady Plumm,” A lord to the right of opening greeted her with a snarl as she ducked through, but the aggression on his face quickly vanished when the Mountain pushed through behind her, head scraping the top of the canvas. 

“Her name is Lannister,” A thick Northern accent called from the front of the tent, “and she is our guest. We will treat her with respect.” 

(Y/n) let her eyes trail up the length of the tent, prepared for exactly what she’d find. 

Robb Stark sat at the far end of a large, rather plain table. His elbows propped on the edge of the dark wood, and his stare looked out over fingers clasped in front of his mouth. 

The room, if it could be called such a thing in a tent, was bare. Men, a great number of them, lined the walls. Some (Y/n) recognized were the heads of great houses in the Riverlands she had encountered over the years. A few she could recall from her time in Winterfell, but most were entirely unknown to her. 

Despite the size of their gathering and the scale of the table Robb Stark occupied, there were only four chairs in the room. One was directly in front of her at the far end while the other two flanked Robb at his left and right hand side. 

None of the chairs were occupied. None of those present made a move to occupy any of the seats. It seemed they were all too tense. It was like they were waiting for her to attack, even though they were the ones who brought the small army outside.

“Thank you, Lord Stark. Your courtesy is appreciated.” (Y/n) gave a shallow bow of her head in his direction.

A grumble went up from a few of the men, but only one of them spoke. An older man nearer the entryway let out a loud grunt. His head shook out thinning grey hair. Even though his beard hid his mouth, the twitch of it made it obvious the man sported a sneer. 

“That’s King Robb Stark to you.” 

(Y/n) inclined her head to look sideways at the man and, as spitefully as she could manage, said, “Are we in the North? Or do I look like common folk to you? No. This is the Westerlands, and I am a Lannister. I won’t bow to any pretender.” 

The man reached a hand for the hilt of his sword, but the Mountain beat him to it. Drawing his own nearly halfway out of its sheath before a shout went out. 

“Stop!” 

Robb Stark rose to his feet with a hand outstretched towards his enraged lord. “Put your arms down, Lord Karstark. Lady Lannister meets with us under a flag of peace, and I will not have my name marred by innocent bloodshed.” 

“Innocent?” Lord Karstark forgot his plight with the newcomer almost instantly. He stared at his King with a dumbfounded expression. “No Lannister is innocent! Her brother murdered my boy! I demand recompense.” 

(Y/n) puffed out a breath of air to avoid laughing at the irate man, “I dare say if you demand apologies from me for all my siblings have wrought, it will be a long time before I’m allowed to speak any words other than sorry.” 

A hefty man over Robb’s shoulder let out a snort, and it seemed many of the others took a cue to relieve some of their tension. Though, Lord Karstark was not among them. 

He turned on (Y/n) looking thoroughly unamused. “My son is dead at the hands of your brother.” 

If it were any other man, or rather if it weren’t a Northern Lord, (Y/n) might have tried. She could have wooed and swayed his mind and asked forgiveness and promised him his dues, but Northerners were fickle things. Their reasoning was beyond her understanding, and logic was above theirs. 

“Your son died in a war.” (Y/n) rolled her eyes, “How shocking, I’ve never heard a man to die of such a cause. Was he the first?” 

“You arrogant little,” Karstark lunged, but before he could reach her, the Mountain’s hand shot out and clasped around the elderly lord’s neck. 

His feet dangled several inches off the ground. They flailed about desperately trying to find purchase on the ground, on the Mountain, on anything within reach. It was like watching the feet of a drowning man, kicking to save his life. 

His eyes showed a terror (Y/n) was so familiar with it wasn’t even worthy of note. The panic sapped him of all conscious thought, and the logical solution of going for his sword seemed to slip his mind. His hands clutched the Mountain’s wrist, only just managing to cover its width. 

In the Mountain’s grip, Lord Karstark, Robb had called him, was much taller than (Y/n), but it didn’t feel that way for either of them. Lord Karstark felt very small. (Y/n) returned the sneer that disappeared so suddenly from Lord Karstark’s lips and spat, “Ironic that you think me arrogant when it is you who believes your son’s life was more valuable than any of your soldiers. Did you demand justice for your men your King sent to slaughter? Or only your son who died from his own negligence?” 

The room was still and silent. Every man’s hand rested on his sword, save the Mountain’s, whose dominant hand was slowly pressing in on Lord Karstark’s neck. It was as though the Northmen were expecting, waiting, possibly even hoping the Mountain would kill their friend. They longed for blood. They wanted to have reason to face down the giant, to capture the Lady of House Lannister. 

“Enough,” (Y/n)’s eyes darted around the room, taking in the hungry expression on the soldier’s faces. This was no place to die. “Drop him outside, Gregor. I believe the air will do Lord Karstark good.” 

Gregor didn’t bother to walk back. With a mighty heave, he flung Lord Karstark through the tent flap and out into the night. 

Robb’s head hung low, and his fists clenched against the top of the wood. Whether holding in rage at Lord Karstark or rage at the Mountain, (Y/n) couldn’t be sure, and despite popular belief she wasn’t arrogant enough to assume everything was about her. 

“Lord Stark, do forgive us our reaction. At the Rock, men have been beheaded for saying far lesser insults to far less important Lannisters than me. It is only our way.” 

Robb’s fists slowly unclenched as his eyes returned from the grain of the wood to the tent around him. “Lord Karstark’s actions were inexcusable. Please do not judge the rest of us on his lack of respect.” 

(Y/n) picked up her skirts and curtsied to the would-be King. “All is forgotten. Perhaps, we might move on to the matters at hand. There is much to discuss, and I would hate to be delayed.” 

“Then speak,” Robb slumped back into his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s you and your father who called this meeting.” 

“Actually, I believe you’ll find it’s a great deal more than House Lannister who called this meeting.” 

(Y/n) tapped the Mountain’s arm, dropped low but still extended to cover her side. The beast drew back and finally detached himself from her heels. With two sure steps, she took the empty chair at the far end of the table from Robb. Pulling it out, (Y/n) matched the King’s posture taking the place opposite him. 

“Yes,” Robb mused, “the bastard house Baratheon created by your siblings, I presume?” A round of laughs and cheers went round the tent. If it had had walls of any kind, she imagined the sound would have echoed for years.

There laughter went on for many minutes longer than it should have, and (Y/n)’s only reaction was to stare down their King while his men cackled. Robb matched her intense gaze without a hint of humor marring his face. 

As the men slowly subdued themselves, a harsh throat clearing from the beefy one behind Robb seeming to do the trick, (Y/n) finally took it as her turn to speak.

“Robb, I’ll give you this.” (Y/n) picked at imaginary dirt under her nails. “You know how to win a war, but no Stark has ever managed to play the game,”   

A few of the men laughed again, but again Robb was not among them. This time, though, it seemed the divide was for different cause. His men seemed to thoroughly lack respect for what she was implying while Robb caught on immediately to its importance.  The King in the North shuffled up in his chair and leaned forward in his seat. “Then teach us.”

(Y/n) hummed to herself, pretending to contemplate the proposal. She already knew he would say that. She already knew how she would respond, and how they would respond in kind, and how she would respond to that. This conversation had happened a thousand different ways already in her mind, and she was prepared for all of them. Because that was how a Lannister played the game, not by throwing gold at the problem, but by knowing what the problem was before it arrived. 

“Allow me to give you a lesson in history because your maesters must have failed you all.” (Y/n) smiled. It was a courtly smile, not that any of them could recognize that. (Y/n)’s smiles were such perfectly calculated lies that she had heard even the great Littlefinger couldn’t discern their meaning. They would all assume it was cocky. They would be wrong in that assumption, but it suited (Y/n) just fine. “Who is the heir to House Frey?” 

“Stevron Frey,” The answer came from one of the lords behind her back.

(Y/n) didn’t even have to open her mouth to correct him because Robb did it for her. “Stevron died of his battle wounds last moon.” 

“As did his youngest son Walton, and Walton’s two squired sons Steffon and Bryan. May they rest in peace, truly the only Freys worth their salt.” (Y/n) clasped her hands as though to pray for their souls, but no pleas to the Stranger left her lips. “I ask again, who is the heir to House Frey?”

“Stevron had an older boy, Ryan or something,” (Y/n) recognized Lord Manderly. He was a rich man who often traded with the Lannisters, the only house in the North that worshipped the Seven.

“His name was Ryman,” (Y/n) corrected politely, “and he is long dead, just after your party crossed the Twins in fact. He was a gluttonous man, so it was expected. Still, most think it might have been poison.” 

“How convenient,” Lord Manderly mumbled under his breath.

(Y/n) chuckled, “Again, who is the heir to House Frey?” 

“Surely Ryman had sons,” (Y/n) had never met the man who spoke, but unlike many of the others he wore his banner on his chest. 

“Lord Glover, you would be correct in that assumption if it weren’t for the Brotherhood Without Banners. Horrible people, those marauders. Killed two of Ryman’s sons, Edwyn and Petyr. He only had Black Walder left, and Black Walder was dispossessed of his life on suspicion that it was he who killed his father.” 

“And none of them had children?” It was Lord Glover again.

“Only girls, and I am afraid Lord Frey doesn’t value his daughters quite so highly as my father does.”

“Emmon,” The name came quietly, under his breath, but there was no mistaking Robb’s voice or the tone of realization in it. “It falls to Emmon Frey.” 

“And who,” (Y/n) turned on him, “pray tell, is his wife?”

“Your aunt,” Robb growled, “Genna Lannister.” He was angry, angry at himself in fact; angry at himself for not realizing his mistake.

(Y/n) almost smiled, almost felt proud watching him piece it together. “The heir to House Frey is the sister of Tywin Lannister, and you plan to entreat them into helping you what? Raid Casterly Rock?” 

“You and your father orchestrated this.” Robb snarled into the air. 

“Robb, we orchestrated everything.” Robb’s eyes flashed to (Y/n) as she continued speaking. “Do you really think Walder Frey would have let you cross his bridge without me, inside, saying it was acceptable? If you had gone around the Trident, your path would’ve put you at the doorstep of the Rock, and you think we would have allowed that?”

“How much gold did you pay Walder Frey for the damage you brought to his house?” 

(Y/n) knew the voice, and she found herself only momentarily stunned that Lord Bolton would have the nerve to speak at this gathering. “Lannisters always pay their debts, but there are ways to pay debts that don’t involve gold.” 

“Like what?” Roose Bolton pressed.

Her eyes searched out Lord Bolton’s, “Every man can be bought. It’s only a matter of price. For some it’s gold, but there are other forms of payment. It might be land, titles, power, a woman.” (Y/n) drew her eyes to Robb, flitting them back and forth between him and Roose Bolton as if she were watching a joust. “Maybe for one it’s Winterfell.” 

Resting against the top of the wood, Robb’s hands slowly clenched into fists as he caught on to the rather unsubtle hints (Y/n) was giving him. 

“Leave us,” Robb ordered. “All of you.” 

“But sir, she..,”

“My King, I don’t...”

“She’s a Lannister, My King, should we...”

“Are you quite certain you want…”

“Your Grace, the Mountain…”

“Gregor,” (Y/n) barked loud enough to silence the Lords who were rapidly converging on Robb Stark to question his intent, “Leave us.”

Without hesitation, the Mountain turned and marched from the tent to take a post outside.

The Northern Lords watched the display of obedience in shock, and looking amongst themselves, slowly filed out whispering to each other as they went.

“Are you implying what I think?” Robb asked the moment the flap fluttered to a stand still over (Y/n)’s shoulder.

“I’m implying nothing,” (Y/n) got to her feet and crossed the tent, taking the seat to his immediate right, so she might speak at a more normal volume. “I am telling you.”

“The Boltons,” Robb eyed the canvas from which Roose had just made his escape.

“Have been promised Winterfell if they help the Freys slaughter you upon your arrival at the Twins, or if they switch sides in your next battle with my father and defeat your men from within.” (Y/n) explained without any hint of regret.

“Why are you telling me this?” Robb asked. 

Robb wouldn’t lie. He thought of (Y/n) every day and night. It was hard not to when he spent so much time plotting her beloved father’s demise, staring at her house sigil, worrying over marrying another woman, pondering his murder of her husband. 

Never though, in all his thoughts, had he considered turning on his men and joining the Lannisters for her, and he knew far better than to ask her to do anything resembling such. 

“I’m telling you this because that is your future as it stands,” (Y/n) reached under the neckline of her dress and drew, from under the hem, a letter. “But it does not have to be that way.”

“What is this?” Robb took the letter from her hand and broke the Lannister seal holding it closed.

(Y/n) returned to her feet and joined Robb at his side, looking at the words over his shoulder. She’d read them before, but something about them was so unreal it needed to be seen again. “Our terms.”

The letter filled nearly four pieces of paper. It began by detailing exactly how Tywin Lannsiter intended to draw this war to a close. He detailed how alone Robb truly was: with the Eyrie neutral, House Tyrell agreeing to vows between Margery and Joffrey, Dorne’s hatred for the Lannisters and the Starks, House Frey’s loyalty to Genna, Theon Greyjoy betraying him for the Iron Islands, and Lords of his own Kingdom plotting his demise from within. 

Tywin dedicated an entire page to all of the ways Robb could lose and all of the people who would happily deliver him Robb’s head by morning, his daughter chief among them. He noted everywhere Robb had gone wrong, and exactly how he’d lost the game. 

It was page after page of ways Robb would lose, ways he would get his family killed, ways he would die. 

Then he reached the last. 

_ “But I owe a debt, not to you, but to my daughter; and she has named her price. After a lifetime of unwavering fealty, of unending service, of unbearable burdens, the price she named was high. It is, however, a price I feel she’s owed. There are conditions to my payment, but I believe you will find those conditions pale in comparison to the rewards that accompany them.” _

“W-What does this mean?” Robb looked up, but found (Y/n) was not there standing over him. 

She was sitting in the dirt, as she had been the first day they spoke, looking up at him with tears in her eyes. 

“It means that…” She hesitated for a moment before finding the words, “I don’t suppose if I turn my back on my father and my dead husband, gave up becoming the most powerful woman in Westeros, named my son heir to the Rock, left my gold and all my other lavish Southern possessions and joined you in the cold, barren North for the boring life of an incredibly traditional lady, that you would take me as your wife?”

**Author's Note:**

> I do not consent to have my work hosted on any third party app or site. If you are seeing this fanfiction anywhere but archiveofourown, tumblr or fanfiction.net and/or under any username other than 'justfandomwritings', it has been reposted or shared without my permission. Any unofficial archive/tumblr/fanfiction reader apps are considered third party apps and do not have my permission to use my stories in any way or under any circumstances. If you are reading this story on any third party apps or websites, including but not limited to Fanfic Pocket Archive Library or Fluff AO3 Fanfiction Reader, you are doing so without my consent and under vehement protest.


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